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RHYTHMIC SOLILOQUIES 



RHYTHMIC SOLILOQUIES 



BY 

WILLIAM STRUTHERS 

AUTHOR OF 

TRANSCRIPTIONS FROM ART AND NATURE 

LYRIC MOODS AND TENSES 







PHILADELPHIA 

WM. F. FELL CO- PRINTERS 
1913 



Copyright 

WllJJAM Struthers 

1913 



\V3 



©CI,A.'?4 6019 



TO RUDOLPH 

in remembrance of the most faithful of friends 
and to the present friendship of 

Edwin F. Edgett & Edward Burton Holmes 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Grateful acknowledgments are due to Ainslee's Maga- 
line, Town and Country, The Boston Evening Transcript, 
and other periodicals, for permission to use the major 
part of the contents of this little volume. 



FOREWORD 
I IKE Lyric Moods and Tenses, which has preceded 
^ it, Rhyihmic Soliloquies puts forth no systematic 
arrangement, no specific ordering of contents. 

If any such may herein be traced, it must come from 
the discernment of a reader not less penetratingly 
discriminative than the musician who could detect 
and trace out genuine melodies in a tone poem by 
Claude Debussy. 

Extended regularity in architecture, particularly in 
the matter of a skyline, soon becomes disasteful to the 
artistic mind; so likewise in lyric verse is it better to 
risk a variation of standard than to beget monotony 
through an insistence upon equality of merit. Hence 
this book may seem to many persons uneven as respects 
value of contents. 

Let one merely hope that the following syllabic 
rhythms may seem sufficiently varied to persuade the 
reader now and then to look them over for a fresh 
scanning. 

W.S. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Sibelius's E-Minor Symphony 1 1 

Tschaikowsky's " B-Flat Minor Concerto" 13 

The Lohengrin Prelude 15 

The Garden Scene — "Tristan and Isolde" 16 

A Night Piece 17 

On a Nocturne by Borodin 18 

The Rachmaninoff Prelude 19 

Dvofak's "Humoresque" 21 

Chopin's Scherzo in B-Flat Minor 22 

Finale — Presto (Chopin's B-Flat Minor Sonata) 25 

The Scherzo of Schubert's Last Symphony 26 

The Last Two Chords of the Chopin " Berceuse" 27 

The Swan 28 

To Rudolph 30 

" Ere Weight of Years" 30 

Wilbur Wright 31 

Two Sonnets 32 

" Like Coral Animalcula " 32 

"The Loom of Life" 33 

Le Plus Aime 33 

Sleep 34 

" For Many a Day " — Sonnet 34 

So Then, "Good-By!" 35 

"Glad Spoke the Greeting" 35 

"Oh, Pray You, Pity Me!" 36 

A Winter Sunset Voluntary 36 

An Autumn Sunset 37 

In an Oasis 37 

" La Saint-Barthelemy " 38 

" Even as Dante" — Sonnet 38 

Fraternity 39 

"Why Serve the Sons of Science" 39 

The Release 40 

Easter Morn 40 

Wheat Fields 41 

Sunset from the Delancey Street Bridge, New York .... 41 

Roses of Paestum 42 

In Patria Di Gesu — A Trio of Sonnets 42 

La Vita Nuova 44 

The Vintage 44 

A New "Te Deum" 45 

The One Divinity 45 



PAGE 

" Die Allmacht" 46 

The Cosmic Mother 46 

" Je Suis La Lumiere" 47 

" I am the Newborn Light " 48 

Nature and Spirit 48 

Cosmic Foils 49 

" Indifferent to the Glittering Maze" 50 

Out into the Dark 50 

Chanson 51 

Elegy 51 

"While Still the Morning Sun is Low" 51 

Beyond a Wayside Inn 52 

Precursors of Dawn 53 

"In the Land of Rudolph's Love" — Chanson 54 

A Lone Grave 54 

"Hills of Byram" 55 

Autumn Birches 56 

A Sycamore in Late Autumn - 56 

Voices from Blood-red Sunset Fires 57 

An Old-time Seaport 58 

The Witch's Tryst 59 

"Uncle, Tell Me" 60 

"A Welkin Fit for Tragedy" 62 

Le Petit Ruisseau 63 

A Jail Delivery 64 

The Flood 65 

"Chanson de la Semaille" 66 

In a Rude Western Cabin 67 

A Rainbow Just Before Sunset 68 

The Tarn 68 

Where Rhododendrons Grow 68 

Resurgent Nature 69 

Le Rosier 70 

Red Glows the Sunrise 70 

" I Have Said" 71 

Chanson 71 

The Rustling Vine 72 

" In Memory of Percy Artingstall" 73 

" High on a Pine-tree Top " 74 

Lilac Time 76 

Chanson D' Amour 78 

In April 79 

The Hearth Fire 79 



PAGE 

A Winter Night Fantasy 80 

The Ghost-white Stars 81 

On the Passing of Julia Ward Howe 81 

The Titanic — In Memoriam 84 

A Trio of Songs 86 

The Palm-tree — Song 87 

Hallowe'en 88 

The Backlog Fire 89 

From Different Standpoints 90 

The Field 91 

The Wonder of Dawn 91 

Calla Lilies in the Dusk 91 

A Blade of Grass 92 

The Stars 92 

A Day in Early Summer 93 

L'Automne 94 

"One Little Word" 95 

Chanson 96 

Chanson 96 

Two Valentines 97 

Quatrains 97 

"We Sat in Silence" 98 

From Philadelphia's City Hall Tower 98 

Fritz Scheel 99 

On Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony loi 

"Amid the Peace of Shadow Time" 103 



RHYTHMIC SOLILOQUIES 

SIBELIUS'S E-MINOR SYMPHONY 
[To Dr. Karl Muck and the Boston Symphony Orchestra] 



Andante, ma non troppo — Allegro energico 

COG-LADEN, lo, a blare and rush of winds 

* From highlands where the June day dwells bereft 

Of night and moon and stars! And from that blare 

Comes forth, ghost-like, a lonely, bleating call — 

Is it a minstrel piping ancient tales 

Of combats won, and battles bravely lost? 

Mirrored in ponds and interlinking lakes; 

The rocks and fir-tree forests listen, too; 

And, islet-locked, the dull, gruff Finnish sea 

Its foam-coat shakes; as it were, a mighty bear 

Of mythic Northern lore; while frosty blasts 

Sweep from the tundras far beyond those heights 

Where June beholds no stars nor moon nor night. 

II 

Andante, ma non troppo lento 

Hush! The lone minstrel lays aside his pipe, 

And tunes a harp, that he may softly chant 

Heroic deeds of single-handed might; 

Or, a still gentler legend fraught with love; 

How a grave, simple youth grew lean and sad 

With yearning for the unknown outer world, 

Till the red lips of some grave, simple lass 

Whispered him that in Finland he must stay; 

Whilst thick larch-boughs concealed close-twining arms 

And summer breezes muted many a kiss 

I I 



And ardent vow. But hark! Whence comes this wail 
For hearts, once happy, grown all cold and still? 
Oh, the sad beauty of the minstrel's chant. 
Subdued or rising, dusky with strange shade, 
Or weirdly rich with twilight-crimson tints 
And gleams of gold through interlacing pines. 
Which turn to silver 'mongst the reedy fens! 

Ill 

Allegro 

A clash and clatter mixed with roll of drums! 
It is a rude, smoke-scented fishers' fair. 
Where greasy Lapps, come from the Arctic wastes, 
Barter deer skins for strings of Venice beads, 
And drink or join in some rough peasant dance; 
While boats are hauled high on the dull-white sand. 
And flaxen-haired grave men spin sailors' yarns. 
Until they smoke and drink themselves to sleep, 
Nor hark the clatter, nor the roll of drums! 

IV 

Finale (Quasi una Fantasia). Andante — Allegro molto 

Yet once again the minstrel takes his pipe 

To wake anew the wildwood's savage breast. 

But hark! Not nature only answer makes: 

The deep, keen passion of a people's wrongs 

Takes up the primal strain, and moans and grieves 

In soul-o'erwhelming ecstasy of woe: 

The tyranny of Swedish lords and Russian czars; 

The fox and wolf, in human guise and garb; 

The age on age of strife and agony; 

War for one's life and war for liberty; 

A flood, a torrent, whose fierce, tingling rush 

Smothers and drowns all tones of lesser power 

In its herculean roar of victory! 



12 



TSCHAIKOWSKY'S "B-FLAT MINOR CONCERTO" 

[To Waldemar Luetsch] 



Andante non troppo e moUo maestoso — Allegro con spirito 

P\ARKLY the silences await the dawn. 

^-^ A warrior, in deep foreboding, also waits. 

Brave, yet so solemn, in the hush, his thoughts 

Dwell upon battle, victory and fate. 

But bravo! daybreak and a glorious sight — 

Banners and standards, armor and bright swords! 

The warrior's plume waves a white farewell, 

A proud farewell to gorgeous balconies, 

To gold and scarlet, where fair ladies smile — 

Away, away! "Courage, honor, renown!" 

Shout forth the clank and flash of burnished steel. 

The trampling of a thousand steeds in march. 

Yet one sweet face is veiled, and bowed in grief; 

Too bitter are the tears the veil would hide, 

Too bitter for the crowd's exultancy! 

The glittering streets, the gracious dames become 
A shimmer, a mirage, of memory. 
Defeat and shame and death have paved the leagues 
That space has matched 'gainst time's long, changeful 

hours. 
Listen! the hailstones pelt a rugged path. 
Where a wayfarer, pale and bent, plods on — 
Were these rags once the warrior's array? 
The storm sweeps by; now falling, yellow leaves — 
Hark, how they patter, rustling to the ground! — 
Remind him of his pride and hope dispersed; 
And yet they soothe him, for he sadly smiles. 
Oh, they would whisper of far mountain slopes. 
Where, proud as he was at his setting forth, 
Pine forests lift their aromatic boughs! 
His heart beats faster, and his hollow eyes 
Shine with a yearning that, he knows, is vain; 

13 



But still it gladdens him to dream of home, 
To paint mind-pictures of familiar scenes. 



II 

Andantino semplice — Prestissimo 

Close clasped, a woman holds her babe, 
Gazing afar, afar across the waves 
That wash, with sunlit flash, the Caspian sands; 
Whilst, in the reeds, a swift-winged water-fowl 
Teaches its young to seek the upper air. 
What magic echoes through the autumn breeze 
To make the baby crow, to coax a smile 
Upon the mother's lean and pallid cheek? 
The woman, thinks she, too, of pine-clad heights? 
Hush, hush! She sings a chant, so sweet and low 
That only pitying love could hear it sigh 
Across the waste of exile and of tears! 

O limpid tenderness of dreamy noons 
That pause upon the reedy, winding shore. 
Defying time in languorous repose, 
To listen to the love dirge of the sea. 
Because, for all its azure, radiant strength. 
The restless sea is amorous of death, 
And may not sing a song of mirth and joy, 
But only chant, in pensive loveliness, 
Epithalamia to the last, deep sleep 
That clasps in chill embraces trembling life. 
And kisses into numbness every throb. 
Each heart-pulse of the weary, fevered world! 

Ill 

Allegro con juoco 

Oh, how youth's passion of full life defies 
The passion of the tempest-armored sea! 
How the stanch vessel beats against the tide 

'4 



In fierce, herculean effort, met by force 

Yet more colossal in its impact stern and close! 

But well the young man knows the sea's dark strength. 

Which snatched his mother from his stalwart arms! 

He seeks the desert where his father fell. 

Yet, ah! the way is long o'er sea and land; 

And wild desire, with maddening sweetness, calls, 

And memories of his mother make him weep; 

And fairy whispers oft caress his ear 

With melody beyond the power of song; 

All these would lure him from his journey's goal. 

He turns aside, but to return once more 

To face and fight the fury of the waves. 

Until his ship, all crushed and shattered, strikes 

The hideous crags of some unknown, lone coast, 

And he, with breaking heart, is flung on high, 

Breathless, there, where his long-lost father lies! 



THE LOHENGRIN PRELUDE 

[Inscribed to Carl Joernl 

'T'O touch and charm the spirit of today, 
^ Dim, from remoteness of an ancient tale, 
\ The legend, like a quaint old jewel, gleams. 

Itself touched by the grace of Wagner's dreams 
With beauty that, to picture, all words fail. 

In silver shimmer from the soundless shade, 
The violins, how like a stream they sway! 
Voices of birds in orchard boughs of May 

Could not the air with such a thrill pervade! 
Fed by the fountain of each instrument. 

Which on that silver stream its dole bestows, 

The orchestral river, melodious flows. 
Until in one calm flood 'tis merged and blent — 

Then, like the sea when first kissed by God's light 

Into full vigor of its briny might, 

'5 



The waves of harmony, in swift upsweep 
To greet the Holy Grail, do heavenward leap. 

Each vibrancy its reverent joy would show 

And bathe amid the roseate, mystic glow, 
Then, in recession, spread that warmth divine 

Far forth upon the ear, and make the heart 
Drink sacramental draughts of Love's own wine, 

Before in shimmering whispers, they depart! 



THE GARDEN SCENE 

"TRISTAN AND ISOLDE" 

Prelude . 

npHE pale penumbra of the glade 
^ Slopes downward into cool, broad sweeps 
Of dark, and ever-deepening shade, 

Where, like an elf transformed, there leaps 
A tiny brook, whose tinkle seems 
The song of Silence heard in dreams. 

And overheard the far-off globes 

Of stars, by millions, dimly show, 
Wan as the gleam of ghostly robes 

Above a river's midnight flow — 
A river, whose unchanged refrain 
Aches with impassioned throbs of pain. 

Tristan 

"Amid the shadow's close embrace. 
Like yonder stars, sweet one, I see 

The misty pallor of your face; 

Your lips, that curve beseechingly; 

Your eyes, that on my glances feed 

And, in the gloom, my heart-thoughts read." 

i6 



Isolde 
"O lover mine! I feel the kiss 

Of Night in every kiss you give — 
A bitter sweetness, whose keen bhss 

Stabs in my breast the wish to live. 
Ah, let Death clasp us in his might; 
He cannot slay this hour's delight!" 

Tristan and Isolde 
"Nay, hush, dear one! O sweetheart, cease! 

The mist, the pallid stars are gone. 
We enter now a realm of peace — 

Why speak of Death? It is the dawn. 
The silvery dawn, the dim, first ray, 
Of something gladder than the day!" 



A NIGHT PIECE 

[Suggested by Robert Schumann's "Nachtstiicke"] 
[To Carl H. Stanger] 
I 
P\IM, star-forsaken, spreads the sky; 
*^ Night hushes Day's last fretful sigh. 
Far, far away, the ebbing tide 
Bears the pale waifs of pomp and pride. 

II 
The world's insistent call is still; 
Man yieldeth up his strength of will. 
Silence, amid toil's brief surcease, 
Makes the heart long for home and peace. 

Ill 

Mother Nature! upon thy breast 
Thought, weary-browed, doth seek to rest; 
And Hope, from all that men o'erprize, 
There turns and, dreamless, shuts her eyes. 

2 17 



ON A NOCTURNE BY BORODIN 

I 

pHANTOMS of twilight steal in cloud-disguise 
* Athwart the dusking of the tawny skies: 
The steppe salutes them from its brownish trend, 
As might a Kirghiz chieftain greet his friend. 

II 
Black tents uprise, like clusters of low mounds. 
From them now issue quaint, half-droning sounds; 
Whilst, far away, weird as a fairy strain, 
The herd-bells tinkle 'midst the boundless plain. 

Ill 

Crouched in his felt-wrought door a tribal bard 
Watches the twilight fade with slow regard; 
Praying the night to fetch the stars and moon, 
And in his breast to wake a love-lorn croon. 



IV 

As might a Kirghiz chieftain greet his friend, 
The steppe salutes, from its wide, brownish trend. 
Those twilight phantoms which, in cloud-disguise, 
Steal through the dusking of the tawny skies. 



i8 



THE RACHMANINOFF PRELUDE 
[To Ralph H. Leopold] 

I 

P\ARK — drear — deep — 

^-^ Forth these murmurs fling 

Their muttered, muffled swing 
From where Time rose from sleep — 

Sleep that would charm stern Fate 
Amid her tyranny, 
And leave old Chaos free 

To roam through space, elate. 
But nay! This halting ring, 
Whose trampling echoes cling, 
Like lead so closely pressed, 
Fast to one's fear-stirred breast. 
Is Fate, in all her dower 
Of fruitless cruel power! 
Mark how she shrouds her tread 

In feline stealth of hush — 
As when a tiger's claws 
Contract, and tiger's jaws 

Yearn for the blood to gush 
In torrents warm and red! 



Yet hist! What means this swell 

Of anguish, this revolt 
Of woe, in knell on knell, 

Breaking each prison bolt, 
Defying, with hoarse breath. 
The chains of Fate and Death? 
Oh, hark! Starved children cry 
Up to the star-robbed sky — 
Stifled, as through a veil, 
Wild mother-voices wail! 
As when a hero troop 
Sends up its clear, last whoop, 

19 



Ere, on despair's grim marge, 
It makes its brave, last charge; 
So now, in brief elation. 
In mad tripudiation. 
The nations rend their gyves. 
And their poor, slavish lives, 
If but to weep and moan, 
A moment call their own! 

Ill 

Alas! alas! again 

The rivet and the chain! 

With awful trumpet-blare 

Fate comes. The nations dare 

No more make outcry hoarse! 

With mountain-shivering force, 

No longer hushed and masked, 

Fate treads! Her hand has grasped 

The horde of humankind. 

And round each life entwined 

A poison-tinted thread. 

Till every fibre shed. 

Like some pale, spectral gore, 
Its tingling, last nerve-thrill. 
And Fate, because her will 

Has won its way once more. 

From nameless shore to shore 
Of black infinity. 

Is whispering o'er and o'er 
Her barren victory! 



20 



DVORAK'S "HUMORESQUE" 

[To Alfred Lorenz] 



TOOK! the apple-blossom rain 

*^ Makes the budding orchard glad; 

Whilst, beneath your window pane, 

Plays a limping fiddler lad! 
How the spring breeze comes and goes, 
As the dance-tune ebbs and flows, 
Half in courage, half in fear. 
With a laugh linked to a tear! 

Have you ever seen, good sirs. 
When ripe chestnuts burst their burs. 
Some caged linnet, on one leg, 
For its midair freedom beg. 
Jumping round as if to fly 
Out, and up the limpid sky? 

As the dance-tune ebbs and flows. 
Half in courage, half in fear, 

How the spring breeze comes and goes, 
With a laugh linked to a tear! 

II 

Yet listen what a deeper rush 
And vibrancy of sentiment! 
What martyrdom of heart hath lent 
This pang, this sudden leap and gush 
To the lame fiddler's rustic bow? 
How can it with such passion glow? 
How throb with fury and disdain 
Of every hindrance, every chain? 

Ill 

But the fiddler plays and plays; 
And the apple-blossoms fall; 

21 



And his wayward fancy strays 

Where wild forest-echoes call; 
And his violin grows strange, 
As its tones take wider range. 
Though the tear-drop and the smile 
Keep them' winsome all the while. 

When the snow the bare earth claims. 

Have you noticed, merry dames! 

Tossed upon the wintry air. 

Like a symbol of despair. 

Just a brown beech-leaf, ice-crowned, 

Flutter to the frozen ground? 

Where wild forest-echoes call. 
There his wayward fancy strays; 

And while apple-blossoms fall. 
Still the fiddler plays and plays! 



CHOPIN'S SCHERZO IN B-FLAT MINOR 

[To Mme. Fannie Bloomfield-Zeislerl 

I 

A STROKE— a three-fold tap, 
^ Questioning so low; 
A gnome by such a rap 

His curious mind would show! 
Hark! an answering clang; 
As though a wizard rang 
A knell on some weird heath 
Right in the east wind's teeth! 
Thrice doth the questioning come 
The wizard clang to greet; 
Then a lilt and hum 
Of dancing melody — 
A naiad revery, 

22 



An ineffable flow 

Of mingled mirth and grieving, 

A siren song of weaving 

Together smile and tear! 

Thus, long ago by moonlit mere, 

Harked Merlin to the water-fays. 

Who asked him of our human ways. 

Weary of stream-locked glee, 

They half willed to be free, 

To learn, despite its care 

And spectres of despair, 

Our human wisdom wrought 

In crucibles of thought — 

But listen how they laugh 

And elf-wine pour and quaff 

In reedy caves 

Beneath the waves! 

Only to tap again 

And hear the loud refrain 

Return in resonant might. 

As if to scare each sprite; 

Only to sing anew 

That wistful theme and sue 

For glimpses of man's lore, 

And then laugh o'er and o'er, 

Like irised whorls 

Of lucent pearls! 



II 



But now, majestic in its calm, 

A meditative strain 
Spills pensive drops of balm 

Upon the stream and plain; 
While round the sylphs, unasked, 
Steal fancies, like thoughts masked. 
Till on their waking dream 
Strange glimmers, star-wise, gleam; 
And lo! they chant once more 

23 



Of unknown sights and sounds, 
And touch almost the bounds 
Of mankind's spirit shore! 
And yet they cannot rise 
To knowledge of man's skies. 
Nay, nay! they fluctuate 
In siren mid-estate 
Of mind enslaved by sense! 
Yet ever more and more 
Persistent and intense, 

The longing doth return 
To float aloft, to soar 
Where human souls, through strife, 
Reach nobler planes of life. 

With higher passions burn! 



Ill 

Again the tapping, 

The stealthy rapping; 

Again that clanging sound 

Which makes the heart up-bound; 

Again the gracious lay 

That would such yearning say! 

Yet hark, still hark! 

A soulful spark 

Is flashing all afresh; 

The naiads break the mesh 

Of immemorial thrall! 

They hear, they heed the call 

To enter higher spheres, 

To smile in scorn when flesh 

Their homage would reclaim, 

To challenge flood and flame. 

To conquer drought and blast, 

To learn of human mirth, 

Of laughter's real birth, 

To weep our human tears. 

To keep the count of years, 

24 



To know man's soul at last — 
To baffle Maia's shows 

And faithless grace; 
To love the light that glows 

On Brahma's face! 



FINALE— PRESTO 

CHOPIN'S B-FLAT MINOR SONATA 
[Inscribed to Luther Conradi] 

TOOK at this clay, heaped clod on clod — 

*-^ This yellow, hideous earth! 

How long, how long before the sod 
Shall grant the grass a green rebirth! 

How long ere birds bring here, 
On wings, sun-glad and strong, 

From airy journeys far and near. 
Their treasure of new song! — 

Fleeing the frost-fanged northern blasts, 

Whose breath a fatal poison casts, 

The torn and shriveled leaves 

Come where my spirit grieves. 

See how they whirl and swirl and toss. 

And, in weird, freakish dancing, cross 

And cross again, and yet again 

The desolate, gray plain — 

Like changelings of desires 

Burnt out in passion fires, 

But which the funeral dirge 

Made from the past emerge! 

List how they mutter, as they leap, 

And mock the mute, cold sleep 

Of him who, from all eyes 

Hidden forever, lies; 

Yet who, so late, braved strife 

And thrilled with lust of life! 

God! how the nameless things, 

Bat-fashion, beat their wings 

25 



Above the fresh-dug ground! 

I cannot bear this sound 

Of impish, swishing stir! 

I'd sooner hark a cur 

Snap at a beggar's coat 

Than hear these sere leaves gloat 

Upon man's helplessness, 

And make my heart confess 

What splendor clothed the face 

Laid low in this drear place; 

What joy and lofty pride 

Its features deified! 

And then to come to this: 

To be the jest and hiss 

Of leaves, themselves uptossed 

In mere scorn by the frost! 



THE SCHERZO OF SCHUBERT'S LAST 
SYMPHONY 



(CHILDREN'S fantasy of yearning 
^^ For the hidden and the far; 
Poet's eagerness and burning 

To embrace a spirit-star — 
Smiles and laughter, dawntime roaming, 

When the dew begems the grass; 
Tears and pleadings in the gloaming; 

Joys and griefs that come and pass — 
All you know, and show in rhyming 

Echoes of the tonal art; 
Or in depths of tonal chiming — 

Bells that ring forth from your heart ! 
Schubert, Schubert! you are these 

In your light and boyish moods; 

In your youth that dreams and broods, 
Fitful as an April breeze! 

26 



II 

But hark! What is this wonder, this "sea change"? 
A trumpet summons joyously obeyed, 
A call to rise and nobler heights to range 

Than any slope the Styrian shepherd seeks, 

Than any majesty of Alpine peaks — 
Where poet-hearts are lute-strings gently played 

By finger of the "quiring cherubim," 

Where glories of the glorious earth grow dim 
Amid the ineffable song of day — 

Of cloudless, sun-clasped day and moon-kissed night; 
Where sense and thought are but the throb and sway 

Of the infinite and eternal light; 
Where music sweeps, in waves of tonal bliss 

And power, from universe to universe 

That have put off all wretchedness, all curse, 
Beneath the deathless passion of Love's kiss! 



THE LAST TWO CHORDS OF THE CHOPIN 
"BERCEUSE" 

[To Ignace J. Paderewskil 

/^VER a thread of undulant vibration 

^-^ Whose monotone lies cunningly concealed, 

You weave, young mother fancy, a creation 

Of tonal patterns, fairy wafts congealed! 
Blithe, tender, pensive strains from early days, 
A fragrance kept from care-free girlish ways — 
Silver-clear and gossamer-delicate. 
And soft as nestbird's coo to her fond mate! 

But now the lullaby has sung its length; 

The baby sleeps, and while its eyelids close. 
From 'neath the elfin croon, in throbbing strength. 

Breaks forth the deep, true mother-voice — a rose 
Of harmony, whose first pathetic chord 
Bleeds with child-pangs and wounds from that sharp sword 

27 



Which pierced sad Mary's bosom nigh the Cross.- 
Yet hark the second chord — yes, and the last! 

What sense of sweetest gain from bitter loss! 

A transformation that, by magic stealth. 

Reveals the mother-heart in fullest wealth — 
Listen! The agony and doubt are past — 

All, all resolved — a seraph's dream of peace — 

Into ineffable trust in Love's release! 



THE SWAN 

[Revery on "Le Cygne" of Saint-Saens] 

I 
CROM a sinuous shore, 
^ With white neck arched and wings outspread, 

The swan glides forth; whilst ripples shed 
Their diamonds o'er and o'er 
Its plumage downy-soft. 

Its feathers bland and pure, 

Whose beauty might allure 
Yon noon-bright clouds that float aloft. 
To sink, and lovingly to greet 
The bird, far 'neath their airy feet! 

II 
From bight to bight 
Of flashing waves 

Its course it trims. 
In golden light 

See how it swims! 
The glad sun laves 
With warmth its wings. 

A young wind sings 

Of crystal springs 
That feed swift rills 
On happy hills! 

28 



Ill 

But lengthening shadows trace 
Dark figures on the stream, 
On mirrored turf and gleam 
Of rippling river-space; 
For day grows old apace. 
In plumaged, glossy pride 
The swan sweeps down the tide, 
Whose strong flood never heeds 
The whisper of the reeds, 
Telling of joy and eager youth. 
Of feeble age and bitter ruth. 



IV 

The white swan seeks the mist. 
The haze by evening kissed, 
The twilight distance, where. 
Midst hush of wave and air, 
Mid star-gleams dim and new 
Tinting the dusky-blue. 
River, and winding shore, 
And swan are seen no more. 



29 



TO RUDOLPH 

J F somewhere 'mid the hills of vision you 

* Should greet me in the old familiar way, 
Leaning upon your crutches, whilst the day 

Went with the sun to win its restful due; 

If all my lore of sorrow then you knew 
Without one word from me, who thus should stray 
To where you dwell, before the hours turn gray 

And o'er the orchards spread night's dusky hue; 

If on a farmhouse porch you so should stand 

In glow of radiance that, golden bright, 

Made shadows change their darksome chilliness 

To a heart-purple tint of deep delight — 

Gladly would I yield up life's ebbing sand, 

Nor deem aught could my last dream more caress. 



"ERE WEIGHT OF YEARS" 

[To Louis Persinger] 

pRE weight of years may thwart the heart's quick beat, 
^ A moment comes when it foreknows new skies — 

A glow of light that every gloom defies. 
Where past and present in one flash do meet, 
When wishing is with its own self replete, 
Or token gives that every doubt denies 
Of things beyond the spirit's best surmise — 
Such as of old, a dying saint might greet — 
Yea, thus the soul, ere shadows eastward climb 
O'er field and hill, an instant soars amain. 
Sees dawn of day, feels youth upspring again, 
Marks with clear gaze the drift of flood and tide — 
Grief, joy, toil, rest, which may not long abide — 
And the vast Peace beyond man's dream of time. 



30 



WILBUR WRIGHT 

[Died May 30, 1912] 

1-1 OW long a time the wish outruns the deed! 
* * Multitudinous is the flock of dreams 

By fancy's vision glassed in dimlit streams 
Before reality fulfils a need — 
Before the flame of genius brings a seed 

To such a ripeness that its fruitage gleams 

With golden glow and all past waste redeems; 
As might a sweet, white rose sprung from a weed! 
So, when such flame of genius has outspent 

A force that made old angel tales come true 
And gained o'er "spirits of the air" firm sway, 

We honor it, brave Wilbur Wright, in you. 
Whose passing leaves for us assured, to-day, 
Man's future lordship of the firmament. 



31 



TWO SONNETS 

I 

THE SUPREME DESIRE 

T^HE common strife of men for wealth and fame 
^ And little shows of force we make out clear, 
And in our loftier moods thereat do sneer 

With the good scorn of those who would not claim 

Material rewards — who cannot tame 
The spirit down to anything so near 
And small, holding ourselves too high and dear 

To dwell in confines of so narrow frame. 

But what is that unselfed, yet inmost sigh, 
/Eolian harp-like sweeping o'er the heart, 

To mark Time's motley book indelibly? 

What is it save the soul's deep, smothered cry, 
Its wish, ere on new ventures it depart, 

To verify its own eternity? 



II 
"LIKE CORAL ANIMALCULA" 

Like coral animalcula are we, 

In myriad million rings of toil upcast 

From the abysses of a voiceless past, 
Ages of brutish strife and savagery. 
Which built a subsoil of barbarity 

For richer life thereon to be amassed — 

Life that inhales the spirit winds, the vast 
And fecund odors of the shoreless Sea — 

Monsters of briny deeps have floated near. 
Submarine tempests rushed from caverned gloom; 

Ignorance oft, and tyranny of fear 

Have stayed the progress of the hand and brain. 

That bear such hindrance but to start again 
Their work of lifting man from out the tomb! 

32 



"THE LOOM OF LIFE" 

npHE loom of life, the weft of flesh it weaves, 
^ Grow evermore less real in my sight — 
A wan processional of makebelieves 

That flicker on a path of golden light, 
Light that, in turn, becomes like as a shroud 

To mask a splendor never-to-be-named; 
So glorious, that all else seems a cloud; 

So fair, that beauty hides from it, ashamed! 

It is the essence — yea, the heart of song; 

Thought so alive that music is evolved. 
Music to right, at last, creation's wrong, 

With every discord radiantly resolved — 
Life's birth-cry, dearest sense and loftiest goal — 
Thought that is music, flowing from the soul! 



LE PLUS AIME 

\AANY a friend, to contravene some hate, 

^ ' Or, better yet, to warm the world-wide cold. 

Has come to me — now at the porch threshold, 
Now in the hall or drawing-room, to wait 
My welcome. Or, if more their worth I rate. 
Unto these guests I inner doors unfold — 
The red and blue rooms, or the room of gold 
Where converse deprecates all form and state. 

But, O my more than friend! at your appeal. 
With throbbing pulse, quick breath, enkindling eye 
And joy-hushed lips, a portal I unseal 

That opens on a balcony whence, far, 
We two, as one, greet purple deeps of sky 

And hark the love-song of the evening star! 



33 



SLEEP 

r^ GLOAMING skyland, where day's last dream dyes 
^-^ Night's first dim clouds with such array of gold 

And pompous purple as no tale e'er told 
Of glory in the magic realm that lies 
Beyond the ken of merely mortal eyes! 

Curtain to night's dark gateway weirdly scrolled, 

Yet which, drawn back, night's star-blooms shall unfold 
In spatial fields that baffle dull and wise! 
Then will you come, serene, most gracious friend. 

In sable softness of slow-moving tread, 
And silently day's every woe amend. 

And lay your hand upon my fevered head, 
And to my aching heart such comfort lend. 

That all its griefs shall be as though unsaid! 



''FOR MANY A DAY" 
SONNET 

COR many a day in cloistral quietness 

^ The ties of home held me, and very dear 
Were friendly converse, and hand-clasping cheer 

Of kin and comrade, while the change and stress 

Of public living, afterward, not less 
Enthralled me, and, if peril drew anear, 
I learned how best to face it without fear, 

And ever with fresh courage forward press. 

Thus, so I deemed, was I right worldly-bred; 

Nor learned, before your lips first sought my brow, 
How many cravings Life had left unfed. 

What meanings dwelt within a silent vow. 
But now I know, when mine your lips have kissed, 
That Life is void till Life for Love exist! 



34 



so THEN, "GOOD-BY!" 

CO then, "Good-by!" we say, and gravely part, 
"^ As they who leave take never more to meet. 
Each unto Memory's dwelling would retreat 

And deem all done with converse of the heart; 

Yet why doth, sudden, each look back and start, 
As if at echoing of unseen feet? 
Or do we fear our own hearts' new, strange beat, 

So late apprenticed to dissembling art? 

How dull of soul to think that time or space 

Shall foil the fiat of our common fate! 
Whilst Time a billion aeons backward hurls 
Through births and deaths of multitudinous worlds, 

Love, now dismissed, shall sadly smile and wait 
Once more to fold us fast in his embrace! 



"GLAD SPOKE THE GREETING" 

/^LAD spoke the greeting of my lips to you; 
^^ Yet gladder woke the welcome of my heart. 

When you and I had each grown to be part 
Of one love-thought, though in the flesh called two! 
For one glad day such gladness did come true. 

So true that nothing, wrought by force or art, 

Can ever let the blasting doubt up-start 
That from Love's fount our drink we never drew! 

Tonight, forlorn, still to Hope's veil I cling 

And think: "Though he may now my name despise. 
Some time, when I am ashes, it shall ring 

Once more so sweet! And he shall learn, grown wise. 
His loss. Yet let him then quick dry his eyes, 

Cast off remorse, feel that I, too, see clear 
And, though unheard, with him Joy's anthem sing 

That we again are pne beyond all fear!" 

35 



"OH, PRAY YOU, PITY ME!" 

(^H, pray you, pity me! if I have done 

^^ Aught that has seemed a wilful hurt or wrong; 
If I have dulled a fancy, thought or song 

In its fresh outburst; dimmed your shining sun; 

If through my act some precious thing, unwon, 
Has slipped your grasp; if you have had to long 
In bitterness; been weak instead of strong, 

Because your path across my path has run! 

Pity me greatly, since within my heart 

No glow nor fragrance dwells except for you; 

Since all my soul gems, carved with careful art, 
Show but your name; and all the good and true 

That I may claim are yours, in every part. 
Nor gift-bestowed, but as your rightful due! 



A WINTER SUNSET VOLUNTARY 

I EAFLESS, in tangled meshes, loom the trees 
Above the skyline, like black, ancient lace, 
Wrought by heroic maids, when in the chase 

And combat dwelt all honor. Subtleties 

Of races long dispersed, and reveries 
Of bards long dumb in death, those trees embrace 
And on the trunks weird shadow legends trace, 

And in their thrall the lonely muser seize. 

But hush! Between the trees' black web, a song 
Of gold and carmine sweeps the skies along. 

And sends a glowing echo through the boughs, 
To cheer and thrill the heart ere fall of night; 

To bid the soul with hope keep well its vows 
And, trustful, wait the dark hours' slow-paced flight. 



3^ 



AN AUTUMN SUNSET 

(^ALL you this death? Whilst, through a violet haze, 

^ I see the pilot-lights of passing day 
Gold signals flash upon the zenith's gray 

That has so soon forgotten noon's full blaze? 

Whilst all the far hills fade in motley maze 

And nearby slopes feel shadows up them stray — 
Shadows that on their forest treasure prey, 

Where still lie gems dropped from the sun's last rays! 

Call you this death? Whilst the wide west is spun 
With amber o'er a chrysoprase-tinged arch; 
Whilst, like seraphic hosts in halted march. 
Cloud-choirs chant hymns of crimson-vital fire 
To spirit winds, which, day and night, aye run 
From star to star in quenchless love-desire! 



IN AN OASIS 

CEE how, with fan-soft sway, move feathery palms, 
^ Where steals pale-silver play of starry gleams 

That blend their lucent flow with lunar beams 
Bringing suggestion of ethereal calms, 
Making whisper through desert winds the psalms 
Of spheres beyond the orbit of earth's dreams — 
Spheres that know naught of earthly woods and streams, 
Earth's cares and passions, and brief, paltry balms. 

Yet hist! Yon lovers gazing at the sky! 

Are they so rapt by charm of amorous trance 
That rigid stand they, uttering no sigh? 
Behold, they do not live the life of man! 

They are but statues to record a dance 
That stirred the hearts of some archaic clan! 



37 



"LA SAINT-BARTHELEMY" 

[August 24, 1 572] 

A DAY of regal pomp and civic pride 
"'*■ To veil a long-determined perfidy — 

Behold a nuptial feast of knavery; 
A loveless bridegroom and a scornful bride!* 
Then hark! a midnight bell, and, far and wide, 
A carnival of death, hate's ecstasy, 
Whose dirks replaced the daylight wands of glee, 
And men's red blood the day's robe-gorgeous tide! 

A flood of hate, wherefrom miasma crept 
To masquerade and vaunt, from age to age, 

Till Nemesis herself, while Justice slept. 

Picked up the lie, and wrote thereon the page 

Called "Reign of Terror," cleansing Gallia's veins 

And crying "Doom!" to kingly craft and chains! 
*Henry of Navarre and Marguerite de Valois. 



"EVEN AS DANTE" 
SONNET 

CVEN as Dante, in his weird descent 

*-' To flame-girt Dis, saw myriad shapes astray 

In mid-air flight of clamor and dismay; 
So have I gazed, in psychic wonderment. 
On phantom scenes, and had my vision rent 

By caravans in 'wildering array. 

Whose numbers counted more than night and day 
Might house 'neath city roof or nomad tent. 

But these whom I have seen would onward sweep 
From darknesses to meet the far-off Dawn, 

Whose first faint tread shall make their hearts upleap 
And cheer their ears, though Night be not yet gone; 

And they shall sing, as seamen in storm-strife 

Shout drinking songs and think of child and wife! 

38 



FRATERNITY 

npWO children, at their lessons or their play, 
^ Grow more and more in mutual happiness 
Through little self-denials that express, 

Unconsciously, the beauty of Love's way, 

Which loathes to give to any wish a nay — 
Brothers do learn each other's griefs to guess, 
And by fond insight make youth's trials less, 

And many a rich bloom spring from barren clay. 

Then, as the years glide on, the kindly wise 
Yearn both to give and take in comradery; 

Blind to "the mote," they search their neighbor's eyes 
For interchange of faith and sympathy: 
Each for the other seeks felicity. 

Though he himself shall lose some long-sought prize. 



"WHY SERVE THE SONS OF SCIENCE" 

\A/HY serve the sons of Science gods of tin? 

^^ They search the skies for cometary dust. 
And with cold glance condone the clutching lust 

For gold — or mingle, for some trivial sin. 

Their protest with men's momentary din. 

But heed not, through commercial grind and gust, 
The moan of millions whom Trade's princes thrust 

Into "trade-wars," to let Trade's minions win. 

Yet live they in the twentieth century 

Since Trade's near kindred made a thorn-sharp crown 

Fetch drops of gore from One who bade men see 
That only Love brings durable renown — 
One whose cross-lifted brow could still bend down, 

In death to bless a world-fraternity. 



39 



THE|RELEASE 

npHE breathless blackness of the spirit's gloom 
^ That had tinged all the night with drearest hue 
Grew less; and on the fevered brow there blew 

A wafture from the ineffable bloom 

Of Eden's roses, where there is no doom 

Of stifling sobs, and where no weed e'er grew 
To choke the grass or cast its poisoned dew 

On lilies that, seraphic-fair, up-loom. 

Then, then a whisper, buoyant as the theme 
"In excitu Israel," swept through my soul: 

Sweeter than love-song of a nightingale; 

Grand as the uplift of the Holy Grail; 
And when it hushed, there came a rosy gleam 
To wake the warblers on each dawn-kissed knoll. 



EASTER MORN 

r^LIVE and cypress of Gethsemane; 

^-^ Darkness of temple-crowned, defiant rock; 
Black mists about a gory moon-globe flock, 

Time crawls, in tortured hush of mystery: 

As might a captive thief who would go free, 
Yet cannot strong-barred prison gates unlock. 
Till, with an earthquake's vast, abyssmal shock, 

Chill, pale-cheeked dawn the startled night bids flee. 

Bleak the morn breaks; two women seek a tomb, 
Whence the sealed stone is gone. Their steps they stay; 

For in the place of death they find no gloom, 
But a sun-beaming brighter than the day. 

Their faithful hearts, like whitest lilies, bloom; 
Love, from them, every fear doth put away. 



40 



WHEAT FIELDS 

npHE wheat sways like the sea, met by a breeze 

That from some rainbow cloud-cave doth emerge 
To stir the beryl bosom of the surge, 

But insight giving to no secrecies, 

No revelations of the tragedies 

For which man's heart in hopeless grief might urge 
Nature herself to chant a throbbing dirge 

Beyond the gamut of earth's litanies — 

Yea, thus the wheat sways. Yet, unlike the sea, 
To the wind's love it yields an inner thrill, 

Sings, in self-sacrificing rhapsody. 

That song of doom which soon it must fulfil — 
Its joy in death to work Life's further will 

Of resurrection in humanity. 



SUNSET FROM THE DELANCEY STREET BRI DGE, 

NEW YORK 

A MAELSTROM of commercial strife and zeal, 
-'*■ Making the flood with man's pulse sentient; 

A bridge in lofty, massive arches bent 
O'er town and tide; an endless throb and peal 
Of city whirl; mast, smokestack, foam-flecked keel; 
Countless vitalities that here find vent 
In unheard echoes 'mid yon firmament — 
Oh, how the brain broods till the senses reel! 

Of all the earth's town-life the densest mass 
Lies just below 'neath roofs of myriad shape 

In-sweeping to a distance-hazy line. 
Whence, like a lighthouse on some heavenly cape, 

Into the sunset clouds rose-gold, divine, 

Doth a new-world Colossus, globe-crowned, pass! 



41 



ROSES OF PAESTUM 

DOLD, haughty, yet oft wrapped in limpid haze 
'^ Of soft Calabrian eve or sea-drenched morn, 

Broad-columned Paestum's temples, long time shorn 

Of hymn and hierophant, confront one's gaze — 

The guardian sanctums of forgotten days. 

When Caesars and their loves, in litters borne, 

With Roman feasts and fevered life outworn, 

Sought, pilgrim-wise, these Parthenopian ways. 

A shrine of roses, then, whose fragrance swept 
Tyrrhenum's purple, westward-tossing sea; 
And now, round which, though but a memory. 
Oblivion's subtle coils have vainly crept; 

For still they bloom, at sunset or sunrise. 

In that deep blush which each pale column dyes! 



IN PATRIA DI GESU 

A TRIO OF SONNETS 

I 

\AOUNTAINS climbing to meet the azure grace 
^^^ Of placid skies that scarcely know a cloud — 

Vast hills, themselves so calm, so lilac-browed. 
Steadfast as pilgrims whose unhasting pace 
Shall, through sheer patience, triumph over space 

And every hindrance of the strong and proud 

To whom the meek have ever mutely bowed 
In all the legends of earth's human race — 

And on these heights how leap white lambs in mirth 
At the clear echo of a shepherd's pipe 

That croons the story of its player's birth, 
And murmurs the keen yearning of his heart 
For lowlands where the vintage grapes turn ripe. 
In which he erstwhile had his own glad part! 

42 



II 

Alleys and courts from wrangling never free, 
Where every doorstep is an altar reared 
To Shame and Sorrow, every forehead seared 

By fetid waftures of impurity; 

Where gentle speech would seem a mockery 
Of all that heard it and good deeds be weird 
And strange, should they, indeed, have place, unjeered, 

Amid such squalor, such joy-barren glee — 
Yet here, shut in a low-ceiled, upper room. 

With but a wreath of thorns upon the wall 

And bread and water for lips drawn by toil, 
Lives one whose spirit lightens work and gloom 

With radiant trust, and every angered call 

Answers with smiles that no slum-scowls may soil. 

Ill 

In a death's meadow whose gray tombs are lost 
'Neath years of weedy growth; where crumbling rails 
And posts reveal the wrath of autumn gales, 

Or cruelties of winter snow and frost, 

Lies a lone grave, with just a cross embossed. 
Amongst the bloomless grass that o'er it trails 
And from the sky the simple cross-mark veils, 

Save when from off it by a storm-wind tossed — 
But thereon dwells a nimbus of deep peace. 

Invisible, yet to the spirit known — 
The halo of a soul's well-earned release 

From flesh-imprisonments; such sense of rest. 

Like a melodious chant, in undertone, 

Stealing from Love's immortal, star-gemmed breast. 



43 



LA VITA NUOVA 

" VA/EARY the work, the fret, that living brings!" 
' ^ Philosophers and teachers, age by age, 
Thus have announced, and warned us to assuage 

With balm of stoicism all aches and stings. 

"What narrow flight have widest-roaming wings! 
How sweet, at last, to near the hermitage 
Where silence knoweth neither calm nor rage!" 

To us thus even science, cold-lipped, sings. 

Yet if we forth our thoughts will dare to thrust 
From prison cells of greed and care and fear, 
And in the open hark with soulful ear, 
A lark-blithe echo, sometimes far above 
And sometimes near, bids us have surest trust 
That Life and Death mean but the path to Love! 



THE VINTAGE 

I SAW broad vineyards thronged with youths and maids 
* And older folk, who filled empurpled wains 

With grapes whose essence kindled heat in veins 
Ere lips might taste their juice — whilst hills and glades 
Grew drowsy-fragrant, as in woodland shades 
Moist ferns give scent — and far fled gay refrains 
To mix their lilt with less exultant strains 
Through all the speech that gives men's thinking aid — 
And then, O Life! I saw the feet of Death — 

Whereat my heart's fire well-nigh ceased to glow — 
Press out the blood wine of our human woe. 
Then, then I saw a flame-veiled Seraph thence ^ 

His goblet fill, with pity so intense 
That each drop sparkled, deathless, 'neath his breath! 



44 



A NEW "TE DEUM" 

(~\ LIFE, who hast so journeyed in the past 
^-^ From isle to isle of seas with no fixed shore, 

Through ages that the mind, in conning o'er, 
Wearies to contemplate and seeks, aghast. 
Some cove where it may anchor firm and fast; 

Whilst thou, with hoisted sail, dost evermore 

Expansions of the universe explore — 
Thou, who canst never cry: "In port, at last!" 
Bid us believe that it is not thy will 

"To be our judge"; that not to feel thy wrath 
Shalt thou the billions dead revivify; 

But that, in pity of the woe man hath. 
Thou, Life, with love shalt every dust mote thrill 
And make Death's slaves too strong and free to die! 



THE ONE DIVINITY 

[ IFE sighs, as one in restless fever-sleep: 

^ "Wearied am I with tributes, formal signs. 

The shaping of mine Essence into lines 
Of worship, which in thrall men's new thought keep! 
Such carefulness but makes my spirit weep 

Which yearns toward him whom nothing earthly binds, 

Who, Jesus-like, rends dogma till he finds 
Truth, from beneath blurred scripture, skyward leap — 
The thorn-crowned cross, the rose-wreathed lyre of song — 

Hebrew and Greek, who are in me but one — 

I bear as trophies from old Chaos won. 
And with them make contrasting gloom and light. 
To free you in the end from right and wrong 
Amid the deathless upsweep of my flight!" 



45 



"DIE ALLMACHT" 

[To Mme. Schumann-Heink] 

CUPPOSE that but five men revered my name, 
^ Must I withhold my wrath for their just sake? 

For less, of earth an Eden would I make! 
Why, if one man alone should mercy claim, 
All would I pardon for such lack of blame. 
And every arrow of resentment break — 
Yea, though the universe should rise and stake 
Its clay-stained soul against my Soul of Flame! 
And were I vanquished, how would end the strife? 
In exile I should dormant forces test, 
Whilst new forgiveness blossomed in my breast. 
Then, with a strength of love beyond worlds' might, 
I would reclaim my never-conquered right 
To give to all a better Bread of Life. 



THE COSMIC MOTHER 

[To Mme. Schumann-Heink] 

T AM the pregnant quake and stress 
* That shape new worlds from films of fire,- 
I am the springs that upward press 
Through rocky ledges to expire 
In mists, whose life, in turn, doth pass 
Into life-giving herbs and grass. 

I am the ineifable throb and smart 
That form the babe beneath the heart, — 

That feed the child upon the breast 
And urge the youth to go his way 

From rosy east to golden west 
'Mid broader views of night and day. 

46 



I am the brooding underthought 
That bids all thinking bring forth fruit, — 

The hope that will not come to naught 

But, fearless, treads the wreck-strewn route, 

Making man's foes of time and space 

Shrink 'neath the glory on its face. 

I am the faith that shall not wane 
'Mid any gloom of grief and pain, — 

That o'er the lids of dying eyes 
Breathes wordless anthems of release. 

And in the murk of starless skies 
Makes silence but the song of Peace! 



"JE SUIS LA LUMIERE" 
[To Charles Dalmores] 

JE SUIS la lumiere, 
Le souhait, la priere 
De la brillante aube. 
Aussi suis-je I'ombre, 
Dont le soir tout sombre 
Fait sa grise robe. 

Et je suis la joie, 
Quand le jour chatoie 
Comme un beau miroir — 

Je suis la douleur. 

La derniere lueur 
Que donne I'espoir. 

Je suis la vraie vie, 

Ce que I'ame epie 

Du haut de sa tour. 
Et je suis la mort, 
Lorsqu'un bon coeur dort; 

Car je suis 1' Amour! 

47 



"I AM THE NEWBORN LIGHT" 

[Translation] 

j AM the new-born light 
In golden, laughing flight 

From the cloud-gates of dawn. 
I am the purple gloom 
That on the world doth loom 

When day's last gleam is gone. 

I thrill the song of joy 

When life is like a boy 

Flushed with exultant hope. 
I touch the moan of pain 
When, pride and gladness slain, 

Aged hands in blindness grope. 

Master of toil and strife, 

I feed the springs of life, 

Where'er, beneath, above. 
I am the hush called death 
That cools the fevered breath; 

For always I am Love! 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 
I 

V/f OTHER, who breedest. 

Without trace of norm, 
From chaos 

Every vital throb and form! 
Mother, who feedest, 

From thy fond, warm breast, 
The man-babe 

To whom time is still unguessed! 
Mother, who needest 

Not a prayer outspoken 
To give peace 

To the heart betrayed and broken! 

48 



II 

So is the Force 

That starts mind on its way; 
So is the Light 

Through soul wrought night and day; 
So is the Fire 

Of Love to death-doomed clay. 



COSMIC FOILS 

CARTH, without m^anderings 

'-' From peak to plain, 

What sameness of repose the eye would chain! 

The sea, without its ebb 

And answering swell, 

What vital secret in its depths could dwell? 

Day, shorn of constant change 

From glow to gloom, 

What pictures could it paint of growth and bloom? 

And night, with unveiled stars. 

Where might it flee 

'Mid blazing abysms of infinity! 



49 



INDIFFERENT TO THE GLITTERING MAZE" 

INDIFFERENT to the glittering maze 

* Of spacious hostelry or regal hall ; 

Blind to the blandishments of jewelled blaze 

And faces fair whence fairer speech descends; 
Deaf to entreaties of flattering recall, 

Unto one whisper, hush! the spirit bends. 
Finding it sweeter than the smell of isles 

Where spices waft rose-perfume with their scent 

And make thereof a nature-sacrament, 
That in its fragrance all the air beguiles — 
One low, soft whisper that will not depart, 

But, like a sea-shell echo in the ear. 

Brings the remote so marvelously near — 
The whisper, "Home!" unto a homesick heart. 



OUT INTO THE DARK 

npO see a friend step away 
* Into the deepening dark — 
The dark of a starless night! 

To listen, and yet to hark 
In vain for echo of flight! 

If only there might stray 
Through the dusk of paths unviewed 

A lantern's flickering play! 
But the shadows brood and brood 

To quicken a vague dismay 
And into the heart to bite! 



50 



CHANSON 

I SAW the river go to seek the east — 

' How all my being longed with it to fare! 

Well did I know, bring fortune dearth or feast, 

With you I should breathe only joy's bright air, 
I see the river coming from the west, 

But wish no more to follow as it wills — 
For joy is gone forever from my breast. 

And you He voiceless, 'midst the sunset hills. 



ELEGY 

/^H, to be with you, again to be with you, 
^-^ Awake, asleep, even as Love may will. 
Drinking the waters of life anew, lost one. 
Or hushed in earth's clasp with never a thrill! 

Only that we might be again together, 
Voiceful, silent, alike it would be sweet — 

Treading the meadows of some Elysium, 
Or deaf to the sound of merriest feet ! 

Anywhere unto us would it be gladness, 
Resurgently singing o'er triumphs won; 

Or hidden, dumb, 'neath wild tangled grasses, 
From blossom of garden and light of sun! 



WHILE STILL THE MORNING SUN IS LOW" 

XA/HILE still the morning sun is low, 
' ^ Just peeping over misty hills 
That kindle 'neath his rosy glow 

'Mid meadow larks' coy, halting trills, 

51 



I hear you, hear you call my name, 
And all my spirit as a flame 
Of keen desire, across the skies, 
Swiftly, and yet in vain, replies. 

Amid the dazzlement of day. 

The rush and uproar of the street. 

My footsteps I not seldom stay, 

Feeling my heart more quickly beat. 

Because upon my ear that call 

Doth in elusive murmurs fall; 

As might in sudden, waking dream 

Paradise gates an instant beam. 

But when the stars prick through night's veil 

In the unfathomed depths of space. 
The call is like a fragrant gale 

From some fresh-blooming orchard place, 
Echoing reverberantly. 
Yet soothing as a summer sea. 
Till with its rhythm I sink to rest — 
My soul asleep upon Love's breast. 



BEYOND A WAYSIDE INN 

pROM travellers' talk and wagons' din 
You have quietly stepped away 
For a long napping-time to stay 
At a dark, cool roadside inn. 

But I still feel the highway's lure. 
And leave you, with regret in breast. 
Under the hostel's roof to rest, 

Whilst I fare on by wood and moor. 

Through sun and cloud my path I keep, 
Though at the inn my heart left me 
To dwell nigh you and furtively 

To watch you in your dreamless sleep. 

52 



But when the west its amber glow 
Has lost and earth is all at peace, 
My forward stepping I shall cease 

To wait for both of you, I know. 

We then shall meet no more to part, 
Whilst o'er our deep fulfilled desire 
Night shall make sing her starry choir- 
Yes, you and I, and my sad heart. 



PRECURSORS OF DAWN 
I 

CLUTTERING advance and recession, 
Like a heart's hesitant expression 

At the coming of some dear guest; 
Eagerness of the ear to hearken, 
Whilst incertitude doth still darken 

The truth but covertly confessed. 

II 

It is the wings, the many wings 

Of awakened, nest-fleeing song 

That, like a river, flows along 
From the new-born day's hidden springs — 

Wings, countless wings that skyward start; 

As willing travellers depart 
For remote and unknown shores, 
Where joy mayhap great treasure stores — 

Yet still about my window clings 
The chill shadowiness of night; 
Like a cowed spirit, half in fright 

When to it hope a message brings. 



53 



"IN THE LAND OF RUDOLPH'S LOVE" 
CHANSON 

IN the land of Rudolph's love, 
^ Snow-drops do bid the woods awake 
When, with the frost chains from them torn. 
Gaunt, leafless boughs forget to mourn, 
Feeling spring's gladness o'er them break — 

In the land of Rudolph's love. 
The dew begems green lanes and fields 

At dawn and eve, or makes the sun 
Transform it into silver shields. 

Which spiders fancy they have spun — 

In the land of Rudolph's love, 
Wild roses bloom round rock and pool; 

Milch-kine in meadows day-long feed, 
And fat sheep browse or seek the cool 

Of trees where sea-winds croon and plead — 

In the land of Rudolph's love. 
The white clouds o'er a hill-top stray 

And shimmer with desire of flight 
To where the far horizon-gray 

Is lost 'mid heaven's heart of light — 

In the land of Rudolph's love. 



A LONE GRAVE 

I 

r^NLY a bit of sward 
^-^ With roses overwoven. 
Where bees add to their hoard 

Of honey when, leaf-cloven, 
The golden sunbeams fall 

And birds from June boughs call. 

54 



II 

Only a low, green mound, 
But tokening such love 

That earth by seas girt round 
And star-filled skies above 

Could not a tithe contain 
Of its minutest grain! 



"HILLS OF BYRAM" 

[On Daniel Garber's Admirable Landscape, "Hills of Byram "] 

npHE hills of Byram buoyantly 
^ Uplift their slopes toward sun and cloud; 
Through soft blue haze they call to me 
To leave for them "the madding crowd," 
Wine-like their upland winds to quaff. 
And of their streams to hark the laugh. 

What forest aisles of varied tint, 

From dusky green to silver gray! 
How dewdrops on the pastures glint 
At eve or ere dawn speed away! 

And where with light are shadows led 
A contrast mellower to wed? 

In autumn's pageantry they show 

Kaleidoscopic sylvan garb; 
When autumn's festal fires burn low. 
With flashing ice their rocks they barb; 
Whilst in deep hollows they persuade 
Snowdrifts to linger, unafraid. 

The hills of Byram! Oh, that I 

Might on their orchards feed my sight 
And hear the river seaward sigh 
As day sinks in the arms of night. 

And feel the breeze that round them flings 
The slumberous glamour of its wings! 

55 



AUTUMN BIRCHES 

piXED on October's forest fringe, 

The slim birch-trees 
Uprise so phantom-wan 

That oaks the brawling breeze 
In awe bid cringe 
And from their brown-red boughs be gone 

Lest it disturb the pale-gold blush, 

Which is itself a hush 
In autumn's color choir. 



Or look, where birches limn 

Upon the sky 
Their ghosts of summer green, 

The lilac mist-veils lie 
More softly dim 
Above the sallow sheen; 

Whilst, over all blue hymns of peace 

Chant in the zenith soul-release 
And love-redeemed desire! 



A SYCAMORE IN LATE AUTUMN 

pAR out the half-stripped boughs do sweep 

From the tall pillar of the trunk 
That, at its top, would sentry keep 

O'er miles on miles of lowland, sunk 
Into autumn's dun-yellow wane — 

But the great sycamore, though robbed 
Of nigh all raiment, stands superb. 

More lordly than when summer throbbed 
With fervent life in tree and herb. 

And forests filled with birds' refrain — 

56 



The leaves and seed-globes, brown and dry, 
Take rich bronze tints when sunbeam-touched, 

Letting the chill breeze 'mongst them sigh 
From northern hills e'en now frost-clutched, 

And answering it with sharp, quaint sounds. 

See how the mottled limbs up-coil — 

Pythons transfigured, petrified — 
And make for deep blue skies a foil. 

Save when white clouds do by them glide 
On voyages that have no bounds! 



VOICES FROM BLOOD-RED SUNSET FIRES 

\/OICES from blood-red sunset fires 
^ Stir this glen-clasped, slumberous path — 

Voices from cloud camps, wild and hoarse. 
Then low and sad, like warrior choirs 
Chanting in mingled grief and wrath 

Over the Summer's frost-scarred corse. 



Hark how they moan in moody woe, 
Then shout aloud their threnody! 

Strange singing words of tongue unknown 
Carried along a trout-brook's flow, 
Whose sea-green waters ceaselessly 

Are into wan white foam-flakes blown. 

The sounds are like an Indian wail. 
Could that camp round the sunset blaze 

Be not mere clouds, but ancient ghosts, 
Whose voices cleave the misty veil 
And in resurgent threat or praise 

Give spectral speech to phantom hosts? 

57 



Gaze up the sea-green, frothy stream, 
Whose torrent gathers in that song! 

Look at the blood-red camp of cloud, 

Where chiefs awake from death's chill dream 
To tell of buried pride and wrong 

Over the Summer's mystic shroud! 



AN OLD-TIME SEAPORT 

XA/HERE the long, low hills at evening frown 
^ ^ Upon a land-locked bay, 
Athwart dusky clouds bright stars blink down 

To cheer the chill, white spray; 
And, with lanes awry and houses brown 

Where those hills forgot to stray, 
Drowses a little shoreland town. 

Unto him who gazes casually, 

'Tis but a paltry place; 
And yet from the past it holds a fee 

Of bounty, strength and grace. 
There dwells in secluded dignity, 

Done with trade's effort and chase. 
Many a stirring memory. 

The shops are dingy, the shopmen grave 

And careless of a sale — 
Sooner would they a stranger's ear crave 

That likes an ancient tale 
Of battleships and mariners brave, 

Ghostly shrieks upon the gale, 
Or legend of some pirate's cave. 

They will show you, with patrician pride, 

Rare treasures of romance — 
Stories of townsfolk who lived and died 

In joy of wine and dance; 

58 



Who, loving and hating, oft defied, 

With firm lips and haughty glance, 
The onslaughts of tempest and tide. 

Thanks to such gossip, from its long dream 

The dun old town would wake; 
With pomp of pageant the poor streets gleam; 

Laughter and song outbreak — 
For a moment, lo, the past doth beam 

And time's ice-crust from it shake 
Like a winter-conquering stream! 



THE WITCH'S TRYST 
I 

A WITCH-CRONE rides 
^^ Her besom steed 

Athwart the starless night. 
The scared moon hides, 
As from a deed 

Of shame and ghastly fright. 

II 

The beldam shakes 
Her skinny hand. 

As if to curse the earth. 
The darkness quakes, 
As though a band 
^ Of hell-hounds yelped their mirth. 

Ill 

But look! The moon, 
Grown bolder, shines 

Down on a funeral field. 
There, at night's noon, 
Some ancient pines 

A soft, warm shadow yield. 

59 



IV 

The witch! Drops she 
In that weird place, 

As one who doffs disguise! 
She bends her knee 
With saintly grace; 

Whilst tears fall from her eyes! 

V 

What would she do? 
What sweet thrills creep 

Through her time-withered breast? 
Does one she knew 
And loved there sleep 

The sleep of endless rest? 

VI 

And does she deem, 
In this dim hour, 

That she shall greet again 
The lost love-dream. 
Whose joy and power, 

Grave-hid, so long have lain? 



"UNCLE, TELL ME" 

I [NCLE, tell me, do you remember 

^ The hours when good tales warmed the tongue, 

When laughter filled the lulls in singing. 

When jokes were round the hearth-fire sprung? 

Often in those days would you beckon 

And, smiling, bid me to your side, 
Merely to say that life was wholesome 

And that with us youth must abide. 

60 



I used to think you funny, uncle, 
Because for me there seemed no call 

To ponder o'er such pleasant counsel — 
I was myself so young and small! 

The hunting dogs would round you gather. 
And wag their tails and lick your feet, 

As if they begged your ready answer 

That all, that morn, should hold a "meet/ 

Up brushwood hill, down meadow valley, 
With gun, glad yelp, and buoyant shout ! 

Uncle, there was no end of patience, 
And "kidding" won when game fell out. 

Then how you loved to tend the garden, 
To see "the green stuff " grow so fine! 

To help to eat it, when at table 
Appetite was its own best wine! 

The hound that was your close guard, uncle. 
Has long been sleeping 'neath the grass; 

And in the garden other workers 

Make "green stuff" come to fruitful pass. 

Voices that gave of mirth so freely. 

How many mute, hearts grown so cold! 

How many a mate who "toasted" with us 
Has left for aye the genial fold! 

Yet through the drifting of the seasons, 

I still remember your wise talk 
And ask you, too, still to remember; 

So that time's schemes we still may balk. 

Uncle, uncle, give years their record — 
The tragic with the comic flung — 

In summer's blush or winter's pallor. 
You and I must be always young! 

6i 



A WELKIN FIT FOR TRAGEDY" 



A WELKIN fit for tragedy; 
■'*' Wide-spread, a moan pervades the air, 

With shrill storm-outcries, now and then, 

Sweeping over meadow and fen, 
And orchard-boughs forlornly bare — 
The day, in drear subserviency, 
Is paying tribute to Despair. 

II 

The soul within me feels the weight 
That burdens sky and sea and earth. 

Clank rusty chains of conquered Fate; 
Dead superstitions find rebirth. 

Uplooming dimly, phantom-wise; 

As if to bring dismay to eyes 

By Liberty long made elate. 

Ill 

But see! I make these eyes uplift 
To brave the clouds' gloom-furrowed drift. 
In challenging the storm's wild might. 
Why should they quail or lose delight? 

What makes them stare, alarmed and tense? 
Does some ancestral totem-rite 

Bring over them a fearful sense? 



IV 

"Light, speed anew along thy track!" — 
Lo, at the word, athwart cloud-rack 
An answer leaps, a golden flash 
That makes the teeth of Darkness gnash! 

The terror from my gazing flees; 
And from my soul I put far back 

The snare of old servilities! 

62 



LE PETIT RUISSEAU 



IS this the spring 

^ On the forest-clad hill — 
The tumbling rill, 

Where rhododendrons fling 

Their sturdy, pink-white flowers 
To the June-sparkling showers? 

'Tis the spring's wayward child 
That, from its cradle-bed, 
Has down and downward fled — 

From the far, upland height 

Where glitters, undefiled, 

The aromatic light. 

That hill remote 

It can never forget; 

Oft it doth fret, 
To see the eagles sweep 
Where the white cloud-ships float 
On the vast cerulean deep. 



II 

Yet merrily 

Its melody 
Anon it sings and sings, 
Till softly echo brings, 

From some wild woodland hall, 

An answering songster's call. 

It ripples — it dashes — 
Foam-coruscant flashes 

Illuminate its flow — 
It tosses — it lashes. 
And the ferns o'ersplashes 

That close beside it grow — 

63 



With leap and shiver 
And sunlit quiver, 

It wanders on and on, 
To seek an unknown river, 
A life-taker and giver. 

Somewhere toward the dawn! 



A JAIL DELIVERY 



[ LISTEN: as one hears 

And, through o'erfilled delight, 
Begets vague, shadowy fears, 
Lest he hark not aright — 
I shall be free 

To go, to come, 
O Liberty, 

How can I tell the sum 
Of wishes made for thee! 
To walk the street. 
To see the throng 
Advance, delay, retreat 

To discord's blatant song, 
Which yet is sweetly clear 
To one who, year on year. 
Has dwelt in prisoned peace — 
Oh, the keen joy of jail-release! 
Nature's changeful tableau — 
Broad grain-fields lie unrolled. 
Carpets of dazzling gold! 
Green meadow, mountain-sweep; 
Sea waves in foam-capped leap; 
Cascades, whose crystal rings 
With sylvan mirth of springs — 
Divine, all this once more to know! 

64 



n 

Yet see you how I pause before 
The welcome of the open, sunlit door? 
Backward I turn; I wistful wait, 
As one, far faring, leaves the homestead gate- 
Gray light and clang of bell 
Down corridors; chill cell 

That would last hopes entomb — 
Ha! lean arms round my spirit bind 
The jail-mates who seem strangely kind! 

Has my heart grown to love the gloom; 
My soul, to yearn for light no more? 

God, God! Is this my doom? 



THE FLOOD 



I 



P\OWN blows a blast from the mountain lake, 
^^ Whirling and twisting the thin cascade 
Into a serpent of green-streaked foam. 
And sweeping this snake, with roar and hiss, 
Over moss-banks and rocks and trees. 
Cornfield and orchard and cottage home. 
Till all the land lies desolate. 



II 

But the wonder of its furious flight 
Is a cradle, with a birdcage close 
Against it crushed — their inmates gone! 
Whither, say, whither have they passed? 
The reckless flood can give no heed 
To twittering cry or puling moan — 
It feels not even its own wild weight! 

5 65 



Ill 

The birdcage nestles within the crib, 
Which carries it on from bough to rock — 
Where is the babe and where is the bird? 
Only the waters gnash at the wind 
With frothy teeth; the wind flays the flood. 
Both dash on through the anguish-torn land. 
What of the babe's and the birdling's fate? 



CHANSON DE LA SEMAILLE 



"J AM wearyi" 

Moaned the seed. 
"Let me but sleep! 

Why should I bleed 
And upward strain 

To clothe the fields 
And hills again?" 

II 

Yet far over 

Its dark bed, 
Whispered the wind: 

"The light shall wed 
The seed-born grass 

That from earth's gloom 
Shall sunward pass!" 



66 



IN A RUDE WESTERN CABIN 

IN a rude Western cabin croons 

A bronze-cheeked mother to her child 
Soft snatches of Italian tunes, 

With now and then an echo wild, 
As of sea-waves on Southern dunes. 

And while the drowsy infant drinks 
From the maternal, throbbing fount, 

The girl-wife yearns, and sadly thinks 
Of dark stone-pine and sun-kissed mount, 

And seeks to bind life's lost sweet links. 

Her passionate longing, like a spell, 
Close round the babe weaves in his sleep. 

He feels that which she cannot tell, 
And doth his spirit therein steep. 

Lulled by her sorrow's ebb and swell. 

A score of years — the child is grown 
An artist, whose work wins most praise 

For warmth and pathos, depth of tone — 

Folks say, from love-dreams bred, and days 

Of gypsy life, and vigils lone. 

Nor he nor they shall ever know 

The source of what in him is best: 
The song that through his veins did flow 

When he slept on his mother's breast, 
And drew art's flame from her heart's woe. 



67 



A RAINBOW JUST BEFORE SUNSET 

VONDER, a vision of delight 
* Whose evanescence lends it charm. 
It beams a moment on our sight; 
And then, as 'twere in swift alarm, 
It melts in violet-purple mist 
When by the lips of darkness kissed. 

Look, now, ere yet the day grow dim, 

How it upcurves with radiant sweep — 
A highway built by seraphim, 

From earth's brief interval of sleep, 
To azure aeons of the sky 
Beyond the thought of things that die! 



THE TARN 

IN the lap of man-deserted heights 

' Lies a lake, whose clear waves gleam 

With the sky's day-gladdened dream, 
And the sky's star revery o' nights: 

Like a lofty soul that dwells apart, 
Lonely, but made pure and strong 
By the wordless, whispered song 

Of free Nature's never-captive heart! 



WHERE RHODODENDRONS GROW 

IZ NOW you where rhododendrons grow 
'^ And slender ferns wave to and fro? 
There sleeps a pool in purple haze. 
And there slow-footed Memory strays. 

68 



Ere it can reach the lone pool's breast, 
The waning light of autumn day 
Forgets its amber-tinted play 

And sinks, benumbed, to drowsy rest. 

Except, at times, a bold, blithe gleam, 
Breaking the thraldom of its dream, 
Will with a thousand jewels flake 
The dim depths of the little lake. 

Then every tiny, colored ray 

Is to the heart with meaning fraught, 
And symbolizes some glad thought 

Lost in the mists of far-away! 



RESURGENT NATURE 

A RBOR vitae hedges frame 
-'*' Yon parterre of fragrant flame. 
Where red roses of sweet June 
Vie with redbreasts all attune. 

But to our time-clouded eyes 
On the scene a shadow lies: 
As the patina's faint trace 
Mars the lustre of a vase. 

And to our world-muffled ears 
Yon bird carols tell of tears: 
As though earth and sea and air 
Could our life's declension share. 

Yet 'shall robins sing the same, 
Though our joys grow chill and tame; 
And red roses be as sweet 
When our hearts have ceased to beat. 

69 



LE ROSIER 

' '~V IS a slender, lone rose tree, 

^ Set in a town yard square and small: 
No woodland bird, no honey-bee 

Come where it stands. It sees the pall 
Of smoke that often dims the skies; 

It hears the huckster's loud, harsh call; 
The ragman's whine; the fishwife's cries. 

It has no helpful neighbor vine; 
But from each buoyant wind that blows 

And all the days when sunbeams shine, 
It, up and outward blooming, grows, 

To make a few white roses twine 
Among its leaves in fragrant grace — 

Yes; and to give a touch divine 
To daily life's mere commonplace. 



RED GLOWS THE SUNRISE 

D ED glows the sunrise on cloud-bank and ocean; 
^^ Swift o'er the waves glide the white wings of ships; 
Broad pasture-lands feel the day's waking motion; 
Heaven pours wine for the earth's drowsy lips. 
Yes, the breeze blows on the sand-dunes esurient; 

Seafowl and landbird the golden air seek; 
Nature, exulting, cries — "Hail to the Orient!" 
While, blushing, she gives the day-god her cheek. 
But I must turn west to the sad sunsetting, 
Wander away to the dark from the light; 
Gladness and vigor of dawntime forgetting, 
I wait for the whisper of slumberous night! 



70 



"I HAVE SAID" 

j HAVE said that I would forget, 
* Rigidly turn away 
From every ravishing regret 
That might my heart waylay — 

To fevered passion, as a balm, 
Oblivion would I bring, 

And with a haughty. Spartan calm 
To the gray present cling — 
Yet know I when the day is old. 
When in the west the light grows cold, 
Forgetfulness will doflf her mask; 
And, should I then her true name ask. 
Straight will she look me in the eyes 
And question with aggrieved surprise: 
" Deemest thou I could yield to thee? 
I, who am deathless Memory?" 



CHANSON 

QVER the sea 

^^ My heart has fled, 
Over the morn-glad sea, 

Madly by its yearning led 
Where its love would be. 

Over the sea 

My thought has flown, 
Over the noontide sea. 

By the joy the past has known 
Seeking newborn glee. 

Over the sea 

My soul has gone. 
Over the starlit sea — 

Shall its faith there fmd at dawn 
Joy's reality? 

71 



THE RUSTLING VINE 

(^UTSIDE my window-ledge, 

^-^ Close to the wall, a weed, 

A withered vine, 

Is rustling in the air. 

The keen night air 

Of early winter-time. 

When all the house is hushed, 

When stifling silence lies, 

Like some huge snake, 

Coiled round and round the land, 

I hear the vine. 

Whose rustling will not cease. 

How odd that, although dead. 

The vine should have a voice — 

The only voice 

In all the great wide night 

Of frosty gloom 

To whisper so to me! 

As the dark hours drag by. 

It weaves a sort of song, 

A witch's dirge, 

A broomstick kind of chant, 

To raise a laugh, 

Were it less ghostly-strange. 

But ghostlier it grows: 

A whispering that grieves! 

Oh, as I hark, 

I lose all wish to laugh. 

So human is 

The rustling of the vine! 

Remorseful memories 
That strive to find a voice; 

72 



Sorrows of patient souls, 
For whom no pity woke; 
Wrongs that, unrighted, seek 
Adjustment after death! 



IN MEMORY OF PERCY ARTINGSTALL 
[Killed by a dynamo, November 12, 1905] 

j-JUSH, O ye winds of darkness, moaning wild! 

^ * I will not listen to your wordless cries — 

No, not this eve, this fearful, fatal eve, 

So laden with a throbbing, human woe! 

Or, if ye will bewail. 

Wake a vast threnody 

For him laid low but yesternight; 

For him so strong, so trustful and so glad 

In his young manhood! 

Thrifty, steadfast in his daily toil. 

He asked no guerdon save to work and strive. 

With, now and then, a little holiday. 

To make the zest of labor yet more keen. 

Scarce but a boy in years. 

He faced the frowning world 

With something better than a soldier's pride. 

A pilgrim, too, from England's northern hills, 

Leading a widowed mother, now asleep, 

And two dear sisters to these happy States. 

O bitter irony of cruel fate! 

That very Progress, whom he honored so. 

Has turned and rent her clear-eyed devotee! 

Shall Love forever vainly tell his need? 

Shall not the blind and blear-eyed clearly see? 

Surely, such heroism as this shall count 

And help the world to know its better self. 

To recognize the homespun-coated king, 

To crown the humble hero-heads of toil, 

73 



To bless the hands that make its burdens light. 
Let Love embrace the lowly winding sheet 
That shrouds so much deserving his caress! 
Let Love receive our sad and tender thought 
And guard our hope, our firm yet nameless hope, 
Our deathless hope beyond the test of speech! 



"HIGH ON A PINE-TREE TOP" 

[To Commemorate the Birthday of Walt Whitman, 
May 31, 1819] 

l-JIGH, on a pine-tree top, 

Whose skyward spreading, farthest branch, 
In some impassioned mood of sun or storm, 
Long, long ago was stripped of green 
By noontide fire or lightning's fatal torch, 
A gray bird sits alone, 
Confronting western gleams 
Of gold-tinged, mute farewell. 
With wonderment the bird itself is dumb; 
Yet only for a little time — 
Time but to find a theme of praise; 
Of trust and reverence, 
Befitting such a trysting-place 
Of Nature's viewless comrade powers. 

Listen! listen! How swift, how clear, 

Like echoes from the primal paradise. 

Break forth the thrills of song — 

This warbled valedictory 

Which speeds the slow-departing sun — 

This chant inspired of hope and cheer, 

Likewise downward gliding now 

Among the darkling boughs 

Of far less sturdy trees — 

Down, down, until the shadowy leaves, 

74 



Round hidden trunks and twigs, 
Shudder in sweet dismay 
And let the minstrel's lay pass on, 
Even unto the lowland woods 
And most secluded nooks; 
Even unto the reedy fens 
And misty meadow pools, 
Half sleeping, half benumbed 
By shadowing mountain slopes 
Of frowning guardianship. 

The night damps drink the tuneful draught 

And lose their lethal chill; 

The darkness tingles with its warmth; 

The doubtings of men's hearts 

Loosen their circling chains 

Of bat-like cares and fears. 

Which all become glad zones 

Of cheerful dreams. 

A new day breaks! 

The lone bird's tree-top song. 

The sunset hymn of hope, 

Stirs now the dawn-cool dew 

With sweet significance. 

The waste of woods and fields, 

The flow of brooks and streams 

Reecho to the ocean's marge — 

Yes, over ocean's heaving breast 

To lands of alien life, 

That valedictory 

Which now sings, "Welcome, welcome!" 

Saluting, many-voiced, 

The waking morn. 

Oh, everywhere is music! 
Music, haughty as mountain peaks 
That rift the highest clouds; 
Music, humble as buttercups 

75 



That strew the valley sward 

With gilded "patrins" dropped by gypsy Spring; 

Music, wholesome as crimson clover-blooms 

That give their nectar to the glossy kine, 

To make lean babes grow fat 

And pale lads ruddy cheeked; 

To make men's muscle firm 

And women's forms more round: 

Music, stern and soft, strong and delicate, 

But ever all athrob with joy 

And beauteous warblings, deep and full, 

Of deathless Love and Faith! 



LILAC TIME 

CULL-THROATED, Walt, you sang of lilac time, 
^ And moved with lilac fragrance round your steps; 
And when the purple blossoms, wan and dried. 
Were lost in summer dust and blaze of sun. 
The great, rich, purple sweetness of your heart 
Breathed ever from your lips in genial words. 
And lent a deeper glow to your blue eyes. 
While Time cut notches in the staff of Age. 

Then, on a day before fresh lilacs bloomed, 
All the sweet posies of your sunny strolls, 
Which, gathered as you laughing loafed along. 
You, in glad careless giving, handed round, 
Were brought by Life, en masse, to welcome Death; 
When Death came, likewise, sauntering to your door, 
And there, with arms full of your favorite flowers. 
Bade you come forth to walk alone with him. 
With him alone? No! no! but to rejoin 
The many mates your hands had often helped; 
Whose hearts your voice had often comforted 
With lilacs of the spirit, fair bouquets 

76 



Of songs and stories of man's common life, 
Like purple-tinted clusters of spring joy 
And wafts from gardens of undying hope! 

And then, in homage to you, Death, and they 
Whom we, blear-eyed and dull of brain, call ghosts, 
Rose up and led you to surf-bordered fields, 
Not dressed in pale Hellenic asphodels. 
But green with calamus and lashed by brine 
And strengthening winds from Freedom's wide blue sea- 
Winds bearing whispers from exultant shores 
Of Brotherhood and Comradeship and Faith, 
Where Moses, Socrates and Plato walk, 
And Buddha and Confucius converse. 
And Jesus and the Gospel Pioneers 
Of Israel and Christianity; 

Where Rome's republicans and Julius Caesar dwell, 
And many a brave Teutonic sage and chief; 
Where Dante's lips have learned what laughter is. 
And Shakespeare Hamlet's query clearly solves; 
Where Buonarroti carves his statued thoughts. 
And Raphael dreams such pictured loveliness 
As never earthly vision could evoke; 
Where thousand thousand unknown great minds toil 
In grateful confidence of sure reward 
For every black injustice of the past; 
Where Lincoln finds his martyrdom a mask 
That veiled a universe of broader skies; 
Where Beethoven, with ears unsealed, creates 
With Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, grander forms 
Of harmony than human minds conceive; 
Where sad Tschaikowsky writes a symphony 
Drenched with the dew and gladness of the dawn; 
Where all the wounded souls that lay so long 
In earthly hospitals are strong and gay 
And mingle with the chorus of "the boys" 
On whom you, Walt, bestowed a nurse's care 
In days and months before Death whispered them 
To go with him, to wait for their stanch friend 

77 



In the new clime of endless amnesty 

For all old failures, shames and foolish scorns, 

Where countless arbors rise in purple bloom 

Of honey-bee-invaded lilac boughs. 

And arches, reared to all-triumphant Love, 

Smile down on comrades walking arm in arm! 



CHANSON D'AMOUR 

YOUR love is like a tree of life, 
* Whose boughs infold a nesting-place 
For one lone bird that shuns earth-strife 
And dreads the boundlessness of space — 

About the nest your love shall fling 
Strong, leafy arms and keep it fast, 

Till the lone bird shall learn to sing 
A song whence fear is wholly cast — 

A song of triumph over all 

Earth's bondage and earth's bitterness, 
Which shall, in radiant rise and fall. 

Both tree and bird forever bless. 



78 



IN APRIL 

lAUGHTERandsigh. 
*-' However life begins, 
Together hie, 
Close, yet contrasted twins. 

One clad in white, 

The other robed in gray, 
They take their devious flight 

Through night and day. 

Till smile and tear 
Become as one at last; 

And Love makes fear 

A dream, when life is past. 



THE HEARTH FIRE 

A RARE device! 

Better than wine or spice, 
To sit beside the fire, 
With not one wild desire, 
Just in a twilight dream! 

To watch the gleam. 

Where chimney-shadows teem, 

Break on the mantel ledge 

Or curtain's wavy edge. 

And fancy 't is an elf — 
All to one's self. 
On the glazed wainscot delf, 
To picture lordly piles; 
Again, to peer through isles 
Wrought in a flame-carved beam! 

Ah, such a dream! — 

With not one wild desire, 

To sit beside the fire! 

Better than wine or spice 

Is this most rare device! 

79 



A WINTER NIGHT FANTASY 

J ISTEN, listen! 'Twixt moan and wail, 
*-^The night's embittered blast, 

Drunk with the black wine of the past, 
Beats on my window, frail 

And shivering at its cry. 

That scathes the earth and chills the sky! 

Hark! how it leaps in angry flight; 

Then saddens, sinking down, 

Beast-wise, on bleak and brown 
That were a gay, green sight 

When dewy dawns and sunny noons 

Made Summer sing her bird-wrought tunes! 

Hist, hist! Wolf-ghosts, a gloomy pack, 

Storm-goaded, hunger-mad, 

Gnaw the gaunt tree-boughs all unclad, 
Then rush to fight yon ghoulish rack 

That scurries through the waste of space, 

As if itself on some death-chase! 



80 



THE GHOST-WHITE STARS 

npHE ghost-white stars, 
^ So high, so strange. 
Blink down through bars 
Of straying cloud. 

Whose torn waifs range 
The dusky sky that bends, oppressed. 
Over the earth's frost-rigid breast. 

Sharp, ice-nipped blasts 

Sweep from the sea, 
Where toppling masts 
O'er wrecked men, bowed 

In agony, 
Wait for the last, swift-mounting surge, 
All in its inky swirl to merge. 

But in their quest 
From east to west. 

From deep to deep 
Of boundless space, 

The white stars keep 
Their proud, calm grace, 
Nor heed our strife, nor need our rest, 
Though touched to motion by the thrill 
Of the same all-pervasive Will. 



ON THE PASSING OF JULIA WARD HOWE 

AMID the sunshine of youth's care-free days, 
^^ When life is like a merry, laughing song, 
She turned aside from flower-bordered ways 

To give her love to one, who, brave and strong, 
Had self surrendered to a noble vow 

And lofty aim, which, conquering the night. 
Have brought to sightless eyes and sunless brow 

Of countless stricken souls an inward light. 

6 8i 



Mayhap the daily effort to make clear 

Unto themselves the blind folks' clouded lives 
Fetched to the gentle dame, from all that strives, 

The euphrasy which lends aid to the seer — 

Courage thereby, in dreadful days to come, 
Grew luminous beyond the common man's 
And woman's ken; so that the tempest sands 

Dimmed not her eyes, which waited for the drum 
To give her ears the first tap, ere its roll 
Beat through the flesh to rouse a nation's soul. 

Then rose that lady of exalted sight 
And flung melodious challenge to the foe 

Who, in the gloom, stirred brother hearts to hate. 
Oh, with what ache of breast she feigned delight 

In trumpet calls! Yet 'neath the stress of fate 
She, forward gazing, welcomed present woe 
Whose anguish should worse evil put to flight! 
As Deborah's chant acclaimed his mighty sword, 
So her hymn praised "the Glory of the Lord!" 
To spur and speed her countrymen she sang 
And hushed, amid their shouts, her bosom's pang. 
Staying the sob that upswelled in her throat, 
Not less for smitten hands than hands which smote! 

The fratricidal enmity has ceased; 

Loot, famine, murder, perfidy's black stain 
No more make human kind outbeast the beast — 

Lo! North and South clasp trustful hands again. 
Gladly the lady doffs her warrior mask 
And calls men to a peaceful, loving task. 

Far swifter, closer shall her fingers weave 
The web of private and of public weal 

Than ever could her pen of worth achieve 
In song that battle's glamour would reveal. 

Once more is she a mother in the land 
That she, as priestess, led to sacrifice — 

To her no work may henceforth be so grand 
As helping make fair, happy homes arise. 

82 



Now is her life's wide-arching span fulfilled; 

As from a sunlit window pane is lost 

The melted lacework of the early frost, 
So fades the tracery of her good days — 
Listen! How is the ear a sudden thrilled! 
"Be ye uplifted, Everlasting Gates!" — 
Yet shall no stately monarch enter in; 

No potentate draws nigh of kingly birth; 
Only a whitehaired woman hesitates. 

In sweet humiliation of her worth; 
As one who claims no right such prize to win. 
From the four corners of the firmament. 
Hark, hark! a hymn of greeting round her sweeps! 
Valleys, mountains, rivers, ocean's vast deeps 
Forget their secrecies of wrath and pain, 
Their dirge for all the millions of earth's slain. 
And in one anthem have their echoes blent. 
Triumphantly it rolls through azure space. 

Galaxies that beyond our vision swim 
Make, through reverence, their sunclusters dim, 
When she, the lady, turns in sweet amaze, 
In thankfulness that mingles smiles and tears, 
To view the vista of her honored years. 
Then, in transfiguration of her gaze, 
She sees the future, as she sees the past. 
And knows that howso strong be tyranny 

Of envy, greed and soul-enslaving fears. 
The law of worlds shall give her world, at last, 
Exultant in unfettered liberty, 
A light that knows no sun save Love's own face! 



83 



THE TITANIC 

IN MEMORIAM 

I 
T^HE grandest ship that ever rode the sea 
^ Is on her maiden journey to the West; 
Sunshine and breezes vie in gallantry; 
Ocean, smiling, smoothes down each wave's rough crest. 

From hold to highest deck reigns happiness — 
These are returning unto home and friends; 

Those, hopes of days more prosperous caress, 
Whom to an alien country fortune sends. 

But why this stoppage 'mid the-starlit night? 

Bah! A mere pinprick to so stout a craft! 
An iceberg? Well, what's that to such as she? 

Folks hardly feel a quiver there abaft! 

The starboard sags; yet still security 
Is loath from many a breast, to take its flight. 
Listen! There comes a call to man the boats! 
Women and children first; then trust to luck! 

Not clearer now yon stars are to one's ken 
Than is the doom that o'er the great ship floats! 

Yet no man falters — nay, for all are men; 
Set teeth but hide indomitable pluck! 

II 

Mothers and babes are saved; the boats recede — 
The band strikes up "Nearer, my God, to Thee," 
Biding the summons of Eternity, 

These brave hearts mutely watch Time from them speed. 

Yet hush! Despite man's willing sacrifice, 

One wife and one fair maid of loyal soul 

Thereto join eagerly their lives in dole, 
And for the rescued help to pay the price! 

84 



Look, look! Row after row the lights go out; 

Black in the air the haughty smokestacks sway; 

Down glides the vast hull, down the abysmal way, 
Bent, like a worm by man's foot wrenched about. 

From that dim maelstrom, hark! a moan upleaps, 
A hideous dirge that makes the spirit numb. 
Then creeps a stillness, more than silence dumb. 

Whilst o'er the surge a daybreak glimmer sweeps. 

Ha! Yon pale icebergs which such blood-toil claim! 
Mimicking sails, they breed hopes false as they, 
Till, in her horror at their fiendish play, 

Dawn makes them blush with self-betraying shame. 

Dawn, that awakens to behold the woe, 

Pitying such a wilderness of grief; 

Dawn, that brings what she can of swift relief, 
One rescue ship — poor comfort to bestow. 

Victims of thoughtlessness and petty greed! 

Alas! her wail for slaughter of such men! 

These thousands cooped like cattle in a pen, 
God's thousands, of whose worth the world had need! 

Yet, at the last, shall Dawn regain her calm, 

Returning to salute the Northern sea; 

And in her ear "Nearer, my God, to Thee" 
Shall whisper, like a resurrection psalm! 
Yes, 'mid her radiance that hymn shall dwell, 

An homage to heroic human souls, 

A beacon guiding to supernal goals 
Beyond the mortal clang of any knell, 
For these courageous men, with steady breath, 

"Fought the good fight" that glories not in gore, 

And, in defeat, his banner from him tore 
And crushed to nothingness triumphant Death. 



85 



A TRIO OF SONGS 

I 

The Hero 

\A/ITH vibrant voice he cries: "In storm of night, 
When clouds blot from the firmament each star, 
A golden ladder bids me take my flight 

From earth to where Jehovah's angels are." 

II 

The Saint 

"From quiet skies," she saith, "that no cloud show, 

A dove is come to peck about my feet; 
And only through my heart's exultant glow 

Know I that Love doth make its white wings beat." 

Ill 

The Artist 

What are to me the pageantries of Fame? 
And yet in lonesome hours I should feel shame. 
Had I not 'midst the crowd affixed my seal 
To all that I could say of high appeal. 

What profit have I that men stand at gaze 
Through some achievement that doth but amaze? 
Yet motives from each moment would I seize 
The exquisite in human minds to please. 

Let efi'ort win the deftness that toil craves; 
But toil and effort are mere faithful slaves: 
Beauty, the child of Love's divinest thrill. 
Alone may bid me do her radiant will. 



86 



THE PALM-TREE 

SONG 

TpHERE grows a lordly, green palm-tree, 
'- Hard by a sand-swept wilderness; 
And thither wandering songbirds flee 
When sun and desert storm oppress. 

A tree so fair, so sheltering, 

That every warbler there has cheer, 

At morn or noon or eve to sing 
Without the shadow of a fear. 

Your love is that green, lordly palm; 

The birds are of my mind each thought 
That from the world finds there a balm. 

And joy ne'er elsewhere wished or sought. 

For there the jackals, care and pain, 
With stealthy footsteps dare not prowl. 

Nor fierce simoons of pride and gain 
There come with blasting rage to howl. 

And there, sometime when day grows old. 

My soul shall steal, so quietly, 
For refuge from the desert cold 

And the night's wide obscurity. 

And there, with every throb at rest, 
My worn, tired heart shall slumber on, 

Till the palm-branches, dew-drop-blest. 
Flash back the golden kiss of dawn! 



87 



HALLOWE'EN 

{IVitches' Song) 

Tomorrow the saints 
Must have their way; 
But tonight is for 
The devils' play! 

\A/ H I LST demons of the darkness rule 
^ ^ We'll watch mankind reveal the fool 
That, be he stupid, be he wise, 
No human wight for aye denies! 

In page or clown, in lad or maid. 

In beauteous dame or hideous jade, 

Some superstition always lurks, 

To cheer Old Nick, what time he works. 

Yonder the moon is smiling, see! 
But just to try our wizardry. 
We'll set a cloud before her face 
As gloomy as a coifm-case! 

These leafless boughs trace fairy lines 
More charming than June's rose-clad vines — 
But look! They writhe, as 'neath a blast, 
Because on them a spell we've cast! 

Behold this graceful, soaring birch, 
Whose bark shows not a scar or smirch! 
We'll bend and shake it o'er the bank! 
'Twill like a gibbet groan and clank! 

Whilst folks devise their ancient tricks, 
Their brains we'll topsy-turvy fix, 
And have an hour of hags' rare fun 
To make them shudder, shriek and run! 



So get your broomsticks, raise a gust 
To make them scared at their own dust; 
Then, when with them the game is up, 
We'll fly away to dance and sup! 

Tomorrow the saints 
Must have their way: 
But tonight is for 
The demons' play! 



THE BACKLOG FIRE 

I'M in for progress, and all that, 
* Nor with a scientist would spat, 
Unless he should arouse my ire 
By sneezing at the backlog fire. 

None ever prized improvements more 
Than 1 do — when they save a " chore "- 
But let none of 'em dare aspire 
To get beyond a backlog fire. 

The hotel "lift" and pyroscaph, 
The engine and the telegraph — 
These works I praise of steam and wire- 
But also, please, the backlog fire! 

The phonograph and autophone — 
All Edison's electric zone — 
Are welcome if they don't conspire 
Against the rare old backlog fire. 

Your patent heaters, low-down grates 
And oil stoves make not rueful mates; 
But when I tune my golden lyre 
I'll sing about the backlog fire. 

89 



Fashion's votaries flutter round 
The register when "teas" abound; 
They favor not the meek attire 
That best befits a backlog fire. 

Ices and bonbons, fancy fruit 
And dainty cigarettes to boot 
Are apt to wear an aspect dire, 
If served beside a backlog fire. 

But if a tale you like to hear, 

Crack nuts, eat apples, make good cheer. 

Then have the crown of all desire, 

A blazing, roaring backlog fire! 



FROM DIFFERENT STANDPOINTS 

P\ON'T we feel sedate and wise 

When we mention " lovers' sighs " — 
Nodding with uplifted brows. 
Scorning both love's sighs and vows! 

What "a case of silliness!" 
Seems it to us, more or less! 
And with what disdainful air 
We remark: "Just see that pair!" 

But just let some honey bee, 
Cupid barbed, sting you or me! 
Won't we change our voice and gait 
And against love cease to prate! 

Now behold us, where we sit 
Shorn of all sarcastic wit; 
For 'tis all so sweet, so new, 
When love comes to me or you! 

90 



THE FIELD 

npAKING the Heaven's smiles and tears 

Into the lap of its loamy soil. 
Here lies a field that has known many years 
The plow and the harrow of sons of toil. 

Always the self-same field in breadth and length, 
In the round of crops with their season-breaks, 

'T is never the same in man's dole of strength 
That, with variant force, each furrow makes. 



THE WONDER OF DAWN 

A CEDAR, 'mid the gray-brown meadowland, 
"'*• With winter memories is worn and sore — 
Beyond the plain loom hills in purple band; 
Of sky seas, as it were, the sombre shore. 

Look! suddenly grows luminous and quakes. 
Above those heights, the mist-enwoven veil- 

The Risen One the bread of Life now breaks; 
Then, ere he drinks, uplifts the Holy Grail. 



CALLA LILIES IN THE DUSK 

D E THESE the phantoms of fair souls, astray — 

Souls who, by earth unsullied, passed away? 
So pure, mayhap, were they that, in his might, 
Death did relent and bid them take mute flight 
Back to the borderland of sunlit day — 
Ghost-pale for having seen the King of Night. 

91 



A BLADE OF GRASS 

' AA I D the dark coil of earth 
^ * A little seed breaks through the clod, 
A striver, e'en from birth — 
Yes, ere it helps to form the sod. 

Then in brave green it grows 

'Neath sun and moon, alas! to meet 

The scythe. Yet still it knows 
Not death. Deep hid, its heart doth beat. 

For look! Anew it smiles 

And greets the passing day and night, 
And o'er a billion miles 

Laughs back the laughter of the light. 

Then comes the autumn frost 

To wound it sore and lay it low. 
In truth, its life seems lost 

Whilst wind-wolves howl across the snow. 

Yet see! Afresh it shows 

Its brave green coat, to greet the blue; 
And, while a new sun glows. 

Once more it drinks the rain and dew! 



THE STARS 

npHE blush of dawn is beautiful, 
^ And lusty is the sun's first laugh — 
What zest have fishers when they pull 
Their craft from shore, and keenly quaflF, 
O'er briny leas. 
The morning breeze! 

92 



How stirring is the throb of noon! 
What resonance, what trumpet blare; 
Life shouts a steadfast, sturdy tune, 
And lifts with jokes its weight of care. 
Braving the blaze, 
Of heat-parched ways! 

Then sunset in resplendent robe 
Casts its wide glamour o'er the sky; 
The day-fire floats, a crimson globe, 
On purple clouds that westward hie, 
And 'mid their sway 
Fades into gray. 

But, O the silver lamps of night! 
The stars that treasure all the past, 
Yet herald by their mystic light 
A golden day more glad and vast 
Than mind e'er wrought 
In realms of thought! 



A DAY IN EARLY SUMMER 

A LL limitations are effaced to-day! 
-'*' There welters such a tide of living light 
That earth and sky, like one vast billow, sway, 
And flash their mingled splendor on my sight. 

And how one's truant heart breaks sorrow's ties. 
Seduced by nature's all-compelling glee. 
And, for a brief space, every care denies. 
Lost 'mid the passion of its ecstasy! 



93 



L'AUTOMNE 



WINES that wake from verdant slumber 

Round the summer porch 
Drink life's wine cups without number; 
Flaunt a flaming torch. 
Lanes that lead, in motley splendor, 
By wide bronze-hued lawns; 
Skies that offer, without vendor, 
Beauty's eves and dawns. 
Woodlands wrapped in lilac veilings. 
Tints no art may seize, 
Hark the frost-harp's fatal wailings 
Chill the mild, soft breeze. 
And the breeze, stirred by keen yearning 
For more buoyant wings. 
With a swan-song fervor burning. 
Unto silence sings. 
Sings to Silence 'midst the glisten 
Of weird opal fires; 
Whilst my heart, alert to listen, 
Echoes its desires. 

II 

What does the wind-voice say? 

And wherefore would my heart 

In its desires have part? 

"Death, stand thou off, keep far away! 

Let the amorous sunlight stay 

To kiss the crimson sumac leaves, 

With maples' bright red robes to play. 

To transform shriveled shocks of corn, 

Mid fields of stubble, now forlorn. 

To golden wealth of harvest sheaves! 

In multicolored ecstasy. 

Looks Autumn from her jeweled seat. 

Let her not pale at sight of thee! 

Death, I protest: It is not meet 

94 



That thou shouldst lift thy ghostly hand 
To smite the ruby-sprinkled land. 
O Death! Life is too blushful-sweet 
Thine ashen-bitter lips to greet!" 



"ONE LITTLE WORD" 

QNE little word, 

Yet said and heard 
With sense as keen 
As poniard's sheen, 
Whose instant play 
Steals life away. 

No anger, but a slow, sure chill, 
Defiant of our wish or will — 
Something that, subtler than disgust. 
Weaves cunning webs of mute distrust 
Which, like as spider-meshes wind, 
Heart fast apart from heart shall bind. 

One little word! 
Why, 't is absurd 
That it should bring 
To us such sting — 
Yet well we feel 
It ne'er shall heal! 



95 



CHANSON 

I 

A LL the night have I thought of you, 
''*• Till night be turned from dusk to gray 
And star-shapes melt in dawn's warm ray- 
All the long night, with sorrow's dew 
Chill on the lashes of mine eyes — 



II 

O'er the sea, as an arrow flies. 
My faithful thought has winged its flight, 
Through the lone darknesses of night. 
O'er the wide sea, to seek the place 
Where Sleep entrances your white face. 



CHANSON 

I 

CREED from the throb and sting 
^ That strive within my breast, 
And heart and spirit wring. 
Welcome, O dreamless rest! 



II 

Yet, of all wishing shorn. 
What void of chill repose! 

Hail then the worm and thorn, 
If I but snatch life's rose! 



96 



TWO VALENTINES 
I 

AMID dawn's blush-hued radiant flame 
■'*' From Orient mysteries there came 
A wafture of the altar fire 
By Passion vowed to young Desire — 

My bosom heaved; my cheeks, they burned; 

My heart with frenzied longing yearned. 

II 

But at sunsetting oped to me 

The Occident's gold sacristy, 

Whence flew a dove in white-winged flight, 

Kissed by the dying lips of Light — 

Then, lo! my breast felt deep repose; 

Love placed thereon a fadeless rose. 



QUATRAINS 
I 

DEAUTY stole naked from the cave of Night, 
^ Unwitting of her strength to charm or cheer- 
Then came a maid of subtle ear and sight 
And said: "Accept my service without fear." 

II 

Forthwith wove she her mistress many a veil 
To heighten or subdue, as she deemed fit. 

Her dame's appeal, and make it more assail 
The world's gay heart of many-minded wit. 

Ill 

And in such service Art herself has grown 
Wiser in knowledge, craft and fair device; 

She weighs the value of a semi-tone — 
A shred of shadow's often priceless price! 

7 97 



"WE SAT IN SILENCE" 

XA/E sat in silence; 
' ^ Though the stars awoke 
A mystic melody in far-off heights, 
And even to the lowly herbage spoke 
And told the fireflies to put forth their lights. 

We sat in silence; 

Though the moonbeams stole 

In quivering cadences athwart the trees, 

And formed a choral dance about a knoll, 

Where, ambushed, lay a drowsy summer breeze. 

We sat in silence; 

Though withm each breast 

Ever a flood of music coursed along; 

And, in the silence, heart to heart confessed 

The deep, sweet secrets of Love's deathless song! 



FROM PHILADELPHIA'S CITY HALL TOWER 

C HEER, straight below me, half a thousand feet, 
"^ Swarm the vast city's more than million souls; 
Yet from the crowded streets no sound uprolls; 
No voice-roused billows on my ear now beat. 
With Jovian supremacy, I greet 
The eddying of countless aim and goals; 
The map, kaleidoscopic, which unscrolls 
Its motley outlines 'neath my proud retreat. 

Be these mere garden walks which wander, filled 
With crawling ants? Alack, man's dignity! 
Two brooks, on which toy ships are closely spilled, 
Yet bear the bartered wealth of land and sea — 
On such a chessboard mythic giants might play, 
Or gods solve problems for some afterday! 

98 



FRITZ SCHEEL 

[November 7, 1852 — March 13, 1907I 

I 

D Y THE sinuous Baltic shore 
*-^ In a far-famed Hansa town, 
When late autumn gales blew frore 
Over fir-grove, fen and down, 
A babe first saw the light, 
A boy who grew in might 
Of strong and high desire — 
For the south wind lent him fire, 
And the north wind gave him force, 
And the east wind chanted tales. 
And the west wind, fond but hoarse, 
Whispered of snow-white sails! 
Then Music touched his heart 
And bade his eager brain 
Take from each wind a strain, 
And learn her sacred art, 
And be interpreter 
To strangers in her world — 
With all his will unfurled, 
He listened unto her! 

II 

Longtime and well he wrought 
In Music's dearest land! 
Serving the good and grand. 
He trained the vast untaught. 
But the west wind aye was telling 
Of new fields over the sea. 
And desire he felt upwelling 
And wooing him to flee 
Beyond the sunset waves! 
All care and want he braves. 
And wins by work and faith 
A kingly laurel crown, 

99 



A genial, wide renown — 
For him no bloodless wraith — 
And, best that Fortune sends, 
Fair troops of loyal friends! 

Ill 

Yet Death, the kind, last friend 

Of all his toilsome years. 

With cypressed brow, appears 

And saith his work must end — 

No more by tone nor text 

Shall he be ever vexed! 

Then they whom he hath honored so, 

Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Bach, 

And many another round him lock 

Their godlike arms: their grand forms glow 

With thrills of lofty gratitude — 

And see! Beyond the Mystic Gate, 

Myriads on myriads, joyful wait: 

Toilers and pilgrims, who withstood 

Anguish and shame for Beauty's sake 

And Beauty's realm more fair to make, 

Sweet valley-lilies with him sharing. 

Wreaths of heavenly roses wearing; 

While, brighter than all stars of space,. 

Music bends on him her dear face 

And gives him his supreme reward — 

The glad "Well done!" of Love, his Lord! 



lOO 



ON FRANZ SCHUBERT'S "UNFINISHED" 
SYMPHONY 

[Inscribed to Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestral 



Allegro moderato 

P\AWN-ROSY mists upcoil from drowsing fields; 
^^ They drift in tattered banners through the air; 
Whilst, from before the sun's advancing beams. 
Empurpled shadows creep o'er hill and dale — 
As 'twere, the cohorts of defeated Night 
Huddling together for a grim, last stand — 

Yet from their darkness now, behold, come forth 

Shapes of surpassing pulchritude and grace — 

Be they the embodied echoes of a dream 

That with its music lured some shepherd lad 

To fancy he might play Apollo's flute? — 

With gracious mien and stateliness of tread. 

Bearing tall amphorae on shoulders fair 

As driven snow suffused with sunset blush. 

Glide nymphs, whose sandaled feet persuade the earth 

To deem itself dissolved in flow of song 

More murmurous-sweet than nesting call of birds. 

But hark! A clangor, as of forest horns. 

Summons the elves from subterranean ways 

To join the nymphs, to wed the North's weird charm 

With the enthralment of Greek symmetry, 

In metamorphosis of sight and sound — 

The rhythmic measures do but guide the sway 

And curve of beauteous imagery, 

As, with more resonant significance, 

Time and again the pageant comes and goes. 

II 

Andante con moto 

Listen! So softly steals an ecstasy 

More shimmering than thought's most golden flash! 

Such beauty, delicate as gossamer, 

lOI 



Is yet the bud of all that heart may feel; 

Anguish and exultation both have helped 

To make its exquisite expanse of bloom — 

Even as once Armida's magic zone 

Blent passion's tears and smiles in sparkling mesh; 

So now have mirth and woe an opal shaped 

Richer in glow than any tinted gem — 

But whither, say, have fled the nymphs and elves? 

Ah, they are human grown and long have borne 

The weight of care, the sting of pain and grief! 

Yet on them light is breaking from Joy's face — 

They are become innumerable hosts 

In dim illumination nigh a stream 

That asphodels and shuddering rushes fringe — 

Yet, cheered by Joy, they do not fear the flood — 

Joy, whose warm eyes would seek alike the wise 

And foolish of the unrecorded past, 

Whose honor and whose shame have knit the strands 

That shape the webbed wonder of the worlds! 

Bidding farewell to asphodels and reeds. 

The multitudes float o'er the river's flow — 

Mark them ascend in rainbow-splendent ranks 

To highlands of ineffable delight, 

Where Sharon's rose or Tempe's vinewreathed vale. 

Good Friday Spell or saintly Paradise 

Would in comparison show mean and poor — 

No mortal tongue may such entrancement tell! 

Here whisper winds that harbor no decay 

Nor dry the bitter tears from shrunken cheeks; 

For they have turned all poison into health — 

Here, just beyond, had one but grace to pass 

While still unshackled from earth's fleshly chain, 

Ripens the rarest fruitage of desire. 

More soothing than Nirvana's lotus-calm, 

Yet thrilling with the fullest pulse of life — 

Hazed only by their own sweet pensiveness. 

What emerald celsitudes of hope uploom. 

Where you, O Schubert! in dear comradery 

Shall drink such wine of song and happiness 

102 



As never poet lips could celebrate! 

Hush! Silence throbs with waking harmony 

That now not even you may utter forth, 

Lest, 'mid the gladsome telling, your bright soul 

^hould longer in its jail refuse to stay! 



AMID THE PEACE OF SHADOW TIME" 



AMID the peace of shadow time, 
"'*' When, 'neath the slopes where white sheep climb, 

The hills have blurred their bosky forms. 

Only bolder to loom where storms 
Break from the high cloud-gates at noon 
And drown in foam the brooklet's croon — 

Yes, when the hills have hid their feet. 
Yet make their cragged tops more clear 

In farewell to the day's retreat 
Before the pale, first stars appear, 
There steals through me a quiet glow 

That gently quickens my heart's beat — 
Whence cometh it I do not know. 

II 

An essence, floating subtilely. 

Brings no fair vision to mine eyes: 
No actual presence do they see — 
No beauty of a noble brow; 

Yet through such vesture of disguise 
I feel the mute strength of a vow; 

The wonder of a sacred tryst; 
A hand, unseen, on my hand placed, 
And from my breast all grieving chased 

By joy whose name no ear may list. 



103 



NOTES 

Die Allmacht. This sonnet is dedicated to Mme. Schumann- 
Heink, particularly, because its author has never heard any singer 
render Franz Schubert's majestic song with the penetrant pathos 
and the prophetic exaltation that the great contralto puts into it. 

The Cosmic Mother. Also inscribed to Mme. Schumann- 
Heink for the reason that, besides her renown as a vocal artist, 
she wears a crown of heroic maternity. 

The Rustling Vine. Only a couple of nights before the oc- 
currence of the sad event recorded in the poem immediately 
following, this piece was written with a sense of strangely inevi- 
table compulsion, a commingling of excitement and depression 
that made it, in the sequel, seem like a direct forewarning of my 
young friend's cruel taking off. W. S. 



104 

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